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SBLECTIONS 



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Poems and Prose. 



BY 

SARA J. MoCONNELL, 

Allegtieny City, Pa. 



PITTSBURGH, PA. 

PERCY F. SMITH PRINTING AND LITHOGRAPHING COMPANY, 204-206 WOOD STREET. 

18©3. 



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SELECTIONS OF POEMS 



-BY- 



SARA J. McCONNELL, 

ALLEQHKNY, F>A. 



THE MELIiKB OF NEWBERRY BRAES. 



A New-Tersion of an Old Song. 



"There was an old miller in Kewberry Braes, 
Had a wicKcd old wife made him tired of his days." 
In the length of the land, in the breadth of the town, 
Whichever way she went up or went down. 
It rattled like thunder, it clattered like hail, 
The heart-broken people looked haggard and pale. 
And the wretched old miller's poor wits went adrift 
In this raging tornado sans let up or lift. 

His teeth down his throat, his hair jerked from his head, 

He dare sit on no chair or lie down in a bed. 

Too weary to groan, too weak to shed tears. 

Or wink with his eyes— he hadn't shut them for years. 

At long and at last he no more could endure. 

Said he," Where she came from I'll take her back sure." 

•'So he shouldered his wife like a peddler his pack. 

And, true to his word, he toted her back." 

When they got there 'twas late in the fall, 
A strapping big demon looked over the wall. 
And seeing two creatures looked awfully queer, 
Cried, "■Get you gone both, we've enough like you here." 
Then this savage old woman, she planted such blows 
On the top of his head and the end of his nose. 
That the smear of his brains ran out at his toes 
Down over the wall and ruined her clothes. 



A legion of demons rushed out to the fray; 

This made the old woman more lively and gay. 

Imp, demon and fiend, row iipon row. 

Like sheaves in a field she soon laid them low, 

Till Beelzebub's self loud as he could bray 

Ran howling to Satan, "Oh, send her away. 

If you don't stop this woman, she'll clean out the place 

And wipe up the floor with the last of our race." 

So Satan was fain to the miller to call, 

"Please don't, Mr. Miller, let your wife kill us all." 

Hope turned to despair. He shouldered his pack. 
And raving and swearing set out to go back; 
Crying, "Fly for your lives, for I'm blessed with a curse. 
My wife's been to hell and "he's forty times worse." 
Oh ! Lord, cried the people who lived about there, 
What will become of us? She's back, I declare ! 

When she called for the tea she had left in her pot, 
The wretched inhabitants cursing their lot, 
To present or future giving no thought. 
In the wildest disorder got up and got. 
They took to the woods, they fled to the hills. 
They hid in the mountains, and said, "If God wills 
We perish of hungei-, right willing are we. 
To what we have sufl'ered it nothing can be." 

Nor ever again in all their born days, 
Did they ever return to Newberry Braes ; 
Nor ever a creature dare live in that town 
Until that old woman lay dead in the ground. 



DEATH'S ECtlPSE. 

Oh, thou wilt come no more. 
Never, never, never, never. 

— Shakespeare. 

Oh, thou wilt never, never wake. 
No lapse of time the silence break 
That seals thy lips. 

No Slimmer snnbeam ever warm 
To pliant life thy rigid form. 

Prostrate in death's eclipse. 

And I, to-morrow, must I press 
My lips to thine, in my long, last 
Farewell to thee? 

From the still churchyard alL alone 
Must I come back, and set me down 
In this blank desolation Home? 
It never more can be. 

My daughter. Oh : my daughter fair, 
Lit with the sunshine of thy hair, 
Twas paradise, Alas! 

Joy's ecstasy and hope's despair, 
And earth and heaven divided were. 
By its gold radiance ; daughter, where 
It shines to-day, thou hast 

Measureless, immortal gain, 
Through my infinite loss and pain 
Of breaking heart and aching brain. 
Oh, ever more to me. 

Blank, rayless, black as a cheron. 
Our once so dear, so happy home, 
And the pathway I must tread alone 
To Heaven and to thee. 



A CONTROVERSY. 



-Lad^— Fleeting shadow of the springtime that left us 

yesterday, 
Evanescent gleam of roses. Oh ! Summer, tarry, 

stay; 
Stay and close your opening lilies, 'twill detain 

you but a day. 

Summer— It for the lillies and for you I was too short, 
woman, dear, 
Autumn will be all too long and to-morrow 
'twill be here. 

Lady — Whiit, autumn on to-morrow! Oh, how the 
years fly. 
The years that never reconcile Cameron and I. 

/Swwjde?'— "Procrastination," Lady, "is the thief of 

time." 
They who tarry for the future lose the present 

golden \vine. 
Was it "hope deferred" estranged him.. Why 

no answer, Lady, mine? 



SELECTIOlSrS OP POEMS. 



Lady— Keep the thorns to scourge the happywho culled 
yoiu- roses fair; 
I was all too wretched, Summer, to gather them 

or wear 
Their beauty on my bosom or their fragrance in 
my hair. 

Summer— I brought my lovely roses for all the world. 
Lady. 
If you could or would not wear them, why 
chide you thus with me? 

Lady — In the dreariness of winter I doubted not the 

spring, 
With its violets and zephyrs, would my truant 

lover bring; 
But most of all I trusted to your long, bright, 

sunny day, 
To chase with golden sunshine the last dark 

cloud away. 

Summer— Ah, well, confiding Lady, at least it did for 
him, 
His happy honey moon not a cloud does dim, 

Lady—ILii honey moon. Oh, Summer, if to-morrow 

autumn be, 
It could just as well be winter, 'twould be all 

the same to me — 
To the inmate of a madhouse what can change 

of season be? 

And the summer went to-morrow and to-morrow 

autumn came. 
And lit the sombre greenwood with a sheet of scarlet 

flame. 
And the winter came, how icy and it brought an icy 

bier 
To a madhouse where a woman lay dying with the 

year. 
And the new year came and buried in the snow the old 

year's dead. 
To the scanty crowd and wearied, "Dust to dust," the 

preacher said — 
Standing in the snow he said it o'er the frozen earth 

they tossed 
Down upon the shrouded nothing who all consciousness 

had lost 
Of her present, past or future, of all travail 'neath the 

sun, 
Cared for nothing under heaven, no, not even for 

Cameron. 



THE INEVITABLE. 



Jenny, poor girl, in a faded gown, 

One summer morning went to town, 

"This old dress," said she, "is a perfect show, 

And this bonnet a perfect fright I know. 

"What shall I do if I happen to meet 
Any one that I know upon the street?" 
And she thinks her life all bitterness; 
And her fair young face looks dire distress. 

On another branch of the self-same road 
Johnnj set out with a heavy load, 
And a poor old horse, the very same day. 
For the very same town, I need hardly say. 

"This," said he, "is the darndest road 
To drive an old horse with a heavy load: 
I wish I was in Dixie myself, and he 
On the other side o' Jordan, for all me." 

Quarrelling both as they went, with fate: 
1 retting both, at their low estate ; 
They turn a corner and meet, ah, me! 
He is sore ashamed and so is she 

But the poor old horse and his heavy load- 
Had a long, long rest in the dusty road. 
JTor an old oak tree is a splendid shade 
And velvet never a carpet made 



Softer than the grass that grew 
Under that oak tree where the two — 
Such is life — grew exceeding fair 
In each others eyes, as they sat there. 

Bonnet or gown? Their rustic trim 

Grew nothing at all to her or him. 

They only planned how from that day 

They should hand in hand tread life's highway. 

Contented under a double load, 

They now tramp down a far dustier road; 

Crying children run before. 

Others follow crabbed, foot sore. 

Homely clothing and homely fare, 
Hard, dirty work, for them everywhere; 
But their poverty is blessed with the wealth 
Of earth's greatest riches— hardy health. 

And if their burdens sore oppress. 
Those burdens make their happiness. 
If not, I must and do declare 
Nobody has any anywhere. 

PSYCHOLOGIC MUSINGS. 



So I, after all, am nothing 

But a flash of consciousness, 
On aggregated atoms 

Holden in chance duress 

By the subtle influences 

Tnat pervade infinite space 
That the veriest of atoms 

And the vastest worlds embrace. 

Omniscient, omnipresent forces. 

That with infinite alchemy 
Build up the roclis of ages 

And wear continents away. 

Upheave the mountain ranges 

With the earthquake's quivering shock. 
Earth itself, those forces 

Can like a cradle rock. 

They rule all suns, all systems, 

Each ponderous orb of light, 
Impel resistless onward. 

In everlasting flight. 

Yet are the violet's perfume. 

And the beauty of the rose. 
The amber dawn of morning. 

And the evenings gorgeous close. 

They bring to-day's brief hours 

That to-morrow come again, 
To drop into the ages. 

As silently as rain. 

Equipoised those subtle forces 

Make my life and me, 
Their equilibrium broken 

I shall cease to be. 

Oh, Heaven, Heaven, Heaven, 
Oh, ruined, "bankrupt faith," 

The total sum of living 
Is the nothingness of death. 

Oh, vainest of delusions. 

What avails it me? 
I thought my life's lost treasures 

Safe garnered up in thee. 

Blank, blank annihilation, 

For them; Ah, then, for me, 
I ask no other guerdon, 

Or other destiny. 

As the dauntless hero marches 

Into the fiery breath 
Of the cannon that belches 

Inevitable death, 



k 



SELECtlONS 01? POEMS. 



Into the Cimmerian darkness 

Brooding over all, 
I march without a shudder. 

Why shoitld it appall? 

'Tis the lot of all the living, 
Undoubtedly 'tis hest, 

And the safety of oblivion 
Is everlasting rest. 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 



[To the memory of a beloved only brother.] 

Hear you the birds of passage crying? 
Thi'ough the night and darkness they are flying, 
Southward through the mist that bars 
The sleeping world from the shining stars. 

And they will alight at dawn of day 

By some still lagoon or lonely bay; 

Or their weary wings in some leafy brake 

That casts shadows green o'er a quiet lake, 

Fold to rest after their long flight 

From the arctic winter's frigid night. 

Spring after spring they have northward sped, 
Autumn on autumn southward fled. 
Screaming come and screaming go 
'Twixt the tropic flowers and the arctic snow. 

Over our heads they fly, but we. 
Who oftimes hear, but seldom see 
The fugitives whose midnight path. 
Is a long highway 'twixt life and death. 

'Twixt life and death, and with a sigh, 

We watch our birds of passage fly. 

With trembling haste in the wild birds' wake, 

To the orange bower by the quiet lake. 

From winter's snow and winter's rain 
They fly in dread. They will come again, 
They always say, when the violets come; 
With the birds of passage they will hasten home. 

Alack! for we know that no coming spring. 
The poor fugitives will ever bring. 
Whose weary wings 'mid tropic flowers, 
Will fold for aye in the orange bowers. 

That a remnant scant of the broken band 
Will C(ime again from the sunny land. 
With flaming cheeks and flaming eye, 
Back with the roses. Back to die. 

Where marble columns, slender and high, 
Like fingers point to the winter sky, 
There the winter snow is drifting o'er 
My bird of passage never more. 

With the wings of fear from the hand of fate. 
Will he fly in dread, early or late; 
For year after year, while the ages last. 
As year after year through the ages past, 

Betwixt his grave and the midnight sky 
The birds of passage their pathway high. 
From thB orange bowers to the arctic snow 
Will screaming come and screaming go. 



WHEN WILLIE'S FORIVER AWA. 



In Scotch Irish Dialect. 

Leddy, me leddy, it niver c'uld be, 
That I c'uld wed you or you c uld wed me ; 
Puir Willie maun love ye but love ye in vain. 
And ye maun forget and be happy again 
When Willie's foriver awa, awa. 
When Willie's foriver awa. 

Yere father's a Laird and the proodest o' men, 
Hoo he scorns us poor folk, me leddy, ye ken, 



Did he ken that I loved ye, he'd ask for nae law, 
He'd hang me aboon yere hie castle's hie wa", 
Aboon yere ain casement I'd dance in the win' 
While ye at yere leisure c'uld greet yersel' blin' 

For Willie foriver awa, awa, 

For Willie foriver awa. 

But dinna ye greet, fair leddy and sweet. 
There s plenty o' Lairds tae fa' doon at yere feet, 
Their siller and Ian' and their castles sae gran' 
They'll gie for yere heart, they'll gie for yere ban' 

When Willie's foriver awa, awa, 

When Willie's foriver awa. 

Sae I'll e'en tae the wars wi' the comin' o' spring, 
I'll light for my country and fa' for my king. 
And if some foreign Ian' wi' my heart's blood be weet 
What naebody kens 'ill gar naebody greet 

When Willie's foriver awa, awa, 

When Willie's foriver awa. 



HAGAR AND ISHMAEL. 

I stood by her dying bed. 

"Tis all mockery," she said: — 
"These jewels that shine 
On these wasted hands of mine; 

They are but the token 

Of vows long broken. 

"Would I were dead. 

How my poor heart has bled 
Through long weary years, 
Keeping back the burning tears, 
Lest the watching world should know 
Of the wretchedness below 

The jewels that shine. 

O'er this broken heart of mine." 

I stood by her grave. 
The summer air was all perfume 
Of the roses all in bloom. 
They w re twined in toils of grace 
Kound her wasted, patient face, 

With its look of despair 

Still lingering there. 

Poor, dead wife. 
How sorrowful the tale 
Of the Ha gar and Ishmael 

Did supplant her in her home. 
And, oh ! agony unknown. 
In his heart once all her own. 

Alack ! Was it not enough 

That in her wounded love and pride 

Often over she had died. 

Why this bitter irony 
Of untoward destiny? 

For Hagar weeping loud 

Came and kissed her in her shroud, 
And exulting went her way 
She is his jeweled wife lo-day. 



THE CAPTIVE. 

Go, birdie, go. 
I hinder not. 

In field or grove a happier lot 
Be yours, when I am all forgot. 

Go and be free. 
The winds are free. 
So are the waves of the wide sea, 
Then why should you a captive be. 

Birdie? 
Because, alack, you sing to me, 
And in my greedy selfishness, 
I care not for the sore distress 
Of captivity's dire loneliness. 

Ah, woe is me. 
You suffer not alone. The pain 
Of aching, dull despair in my poor brain, 
'Tis beating like a catapult, in vain, in vain. 



gELECTIOKS OF POEMS. 



Oh, me. 
If I cpnld fly like you from my captivity; 
Could break the chains no mortal eje can see; 
Alack, I forged them, for eternity. 

And, alack, that it is true, 
Even if I had the wings I could not fly with you. 
When justice scourges, 'tis unsparingly, 
I get my own again and eke with usury. 

For the wrongs I do, 
And most of all to such as you. 
The helpless and defenceless. What we brew 
Is what we drink. Farewell to you. 

There is the open sky, 
'Tis limitless, spread you your wings and fly. 
Freedom is bliss, 'tis yours, Good-bye. 



AT liAST. 



Have I won at last? 
Are the toilsome years 
All behind, all past? 

Have these dreary years 
And their dark pathway. 

Led to success and victory? 

And are you worth my toil. 
Are you worth my care, 
My Laurel crown? 

If the sun do shine and the skies be fair, 
Say will you last, say will you wear, 
Till my day be done? 

I fear you will sink oiit of sit>ht, out of mind, 
Into the darkness that lies behind 

And spreads before 
Away beyond reach of human ken, 

Into evermore. 



MY SHIP. 

"How many watchers in life there be 

For the ships that never come over the sea." 

Mrs. Chamberlain. 

I stand to-night on the silent shore, 

No sail in sight on the sea before 

My aching eyes. But the waves roll in 

With a sob like a sigh. Their ripples fling 

Brown, mouldering fragments at my feet 

That the winds and the waves have ground and beat 

Almost to chaflf of mast and deck. 

Of my own good ship, is this the wreck? 

My own good ship since it sailed away; 

My brow has wrinkled, my hair turned grey, 

Yet I watch and wait by the silent sea 

For the ship will never come back to me. 



I'M DYING, EGYPT, BYING. 

I'm dying, Egypt, dying, 

Through death's twilight gloom I see 
Jove's own hand in far Elysium 

Close Its gates on Anthony. 

Close his soul that darkly hovers, 

'Twixt eternity and time. 
Into Pliuo's fierce, infernal 

Recompense of life-long crime. 

Poised betwixt its sulphurous shadows 
And the light of elysian day. 

My soul travails in retrospection 
Ere it sink eternally. 

Basest treasons, foulest murders. 
Pour unstayed their tidal flood ; 

Total sum of the existence 
Ebbing slowly with my blood. 



But no remorse, no late repentance, 

Stirs the soul of Anthony. 
I would cast away Olympus 

As I oast the world away, 

For the eyes she bent upon me. 

All the glory in their light. 
That is bending over Egypt 

On this tranquil summer night. 

For her face of matchless beauty. 

For her form of matchless mold, 
I would barr.er all Elysium 

As I bartered Roman gold. 
For the "toil of grace" that bound me. 

In its strong, unyielding chain. 
What to me was earth, Elysium, 

If I wore its links in vain? 

But I did not wear them vainly, 

Earth's imperial diaoem, 
Regal, peerless Cleopatra 

Bound her soul to mine with them. 
Forfeited her life, her sceptre, 

Egypt's throne and crown for me; 
Over Styx dark, silent river 

She awaits for Anthony. 

Dauntless in her royal beauty. 

Dauntless In her queenly grace; 
Fearless of the fearful future 

That I almost shrink to face; 
Cast her lot without a shudder. 

Linked her fate to mine and me. 
In the dire Cimmer/an darl>ness 

Closing o\ er Anthony. 

Closing o'er the proud triumvir, 
Dying yet with dying breath, 

Jove's omnipotence" deriding. 
Hurls defiance back in death. 

Strike! for vengeance, all Olympus, 
Earth and Egypt each implores. 

Strike! the culjirit is immortal 
And eternity is yours. 

Strike ! I can, I do defy you ; 

My Elysium mine will be; 
In your despite where Cleopatra 

Waits for coming Anthony. 



A PARTING GIFT. 



This withered rosebud, lady fair. 

This mouldering, crumbling thing, 
Do tender recollections to 

Its faded petals cling? 

Is it the one last link that binds 

The present to past years; 
This voiceless monitor that blinds 

Your eyes with burning tears? 

Ah ! yes, it was his parting gift; — 

He went to gather gold for you. 
Alas! a fearful pestilence 

Was travelling westward, too. 

Nay, weep not, let oblivion's wave 

Over the dead past flow; 
Somewhere on his lonely grave 

The prairie roses blow. 

When last spring's breezes fanned your cheeks, 

They lit a hectic flame, 
A strange light to your sunken eyes 

With its first sweet flowers came. 

When the withered autumn leaves 

Drop lifeless from each tree. 
Lady, to the gav courts of Heaven 

He'll gladly Avelcome thee. 



SELECTION'S OF POEMS. 



LADY ELIilCE. 

(Partly an old ballad.) 

Lady EUice stood under her trysting tree, 

Frantic with anger and jealousy; 
Her parrot sat on the topmost limb, 

And besought her piteously. 

"Oh ! Lady Ellice, for Christ's sake— 

For God's sake— relent; 
If your lover be false yet murder him not; 

bome day, he may repent." 

"Hear you me, come down," said she, 

"Too chill is the evening air; 
How came you here? Come down, sweet dear, 

Tou'Jl be chilled to death up there." 

But a gay young man stepped o'er the stile 

And stood by the lady's side; 
And embraced and kissed her, saying, "Ah! 

How fair is my sweet young bride. 

"When we come again to our trysting tree 

She will be my own sweet wife ; 
And hand in hand, as heart to heart, 

We will journey down through life." 

A glint of steel, and he sank to earth — 
He was dead without moan or sigh; 

And with dripping hands and dripping blade 
She stood calmly by. 

"Oh! God," cried the parrot, high in the tree; 

"Fly, lady, do not bide." 
"Come down, come down, pretty Polly," said she, 

"Too chill is the evening tide. 

"Come down, come quick, pretty Polly," she cried; 

"Pretty Polly, come down to me 
And I will give you a silver beaten cage 

With a door of ivory." 

"Oh, you can keep your silver beaten cage. 

And I will keep my tree ; 
For she who could murder her own true love 

Would surely murder me." 

"Oh, if I had my bent bow and arrow 

Well fixed upon a string, 
I'd send a dart would cleave your heart 

Among the leaves so green." 

"And if you had your bent bow and arrow 

Well fixed upon a string. 
My feathers would carry my flesh away. 

From among the leaves so green." • 

And he spread his wings and he flew away 

Screaming with might and main, 
"Look, look under their trysting tree! 

Her lover she has slain." 

And they found him there in the dim twilight. 

And tbe dagger by his side; 
And they carried him to the altar's steps — 

Where waited his white-robed bride. 

And a godly priest and goodly feast, 

And a lordly companie; 
With Lady Ellice, all were there, 

And the parrot high in a tree. 

And the parrot called to the godly priest 

And the lordly companie, 
"If you look at my lady's snow-white hands. 

Blood on her hands you'll see. 

"And the blood is his and the dagger hers 

Who swore in her jealous hate 
She would sink it deep in his fickle heart 

Whatever might be her fate. 

"And she promised me a silver beaten cage. 

With a door of ivory; 
But she who could murder her own true love 

Would surely murder me." 



They bind her fast and to prison haste 
Down the road past their trysting tree; 

The parrot sat on the topmost limb 
And cried, "Farewell, lady." 

And a Judge stood up in a Court one day : — 

"Woman, stand up," said he; 
"You must be hanged by the neck till dead: 

On your soul God's mercy be." 

And they made her grave in a potter's fleld ; 

No stone or cross is there. 
Of jealousy and a paiTot's tongue 

Let all the world beware. 



FROG AND EAGLE. 



He was seated on a log- 
High and dry. The biggest frog 
I'll bet you've seen this many a day. 
The summer sunshine came ihat way, 
And made him glint like burnished gold. 

Said he, "I'm gorgeous to behold. 
I don't beleive in all this bog. 
There is such another frog." 

An eagle resting high, 
Oq a cloud rift in the sky. 
Marked him with unerring eye, 
And dropped at once upon the log 
To contemplate him. And the frog 

Vented his bitter indiguation 
At such presumption, in this oration: 

"Brazen thing. 
Do you know I am a king ? 
You desecrate this sunny log 
That I make iny throne. This bog 
Is my kingdom. Lift your feet. 
They are pollution. Come, retreat. 
Pack yourself and save the life. 
You will lose by farther strife." 

Said the eagle all amaze; 
"Well, this is the latest phase 
Of the silly kingcraft craze. 
You may be king, or may be none. 
To my crop it is all one. 
For I gobble every frog 
I catcu seated on a log. 

"Fatter than you I never saw. 
And never had a hungrier maw," 

And he seized him then and there. 
.And down he went. "Well, I'll swear," 
Said the eagle. "He a king, 
Thai's a pretty note. By jing ! 
But he was so good and fat. 
Wish they all were kings, and sat 
On the logs around like that." 

And he soared light and gay 

Into the sky. That's just the way 

The modern trust or syndicate. 

To whom the world's a world of bogs, 

And all the people big, fat frogs. 

Swallows early, swtillows late. 

Every creature comes its gate. 



LADY SARA. 



Lady Sara In fine array 
Journeyed down the broad highway. 

Of lineage long .and wide estate — 
Humbly a page did on her wait. 

No longer young, no longer fair; 
With saddened eyes and graying hair, 

And stately tread, but somewhat slow — 
To the town hard by would the lady go . 



SELECTIOITS OF POEMS. 



Sunset fire on the eastern hill- 
Winter's breath in the evening's chill- 
Autumn leaves that were red like gore 
Carpeting the highway o'er; 

A bitter wind with a dreary sigh, 
Sweeping withered leaves and petals by, 

Tongues of time Ihat loudly said 
Springtime and summer both had fled. 

Belike the lady thought of her own 
Forever and ever from her flown; 

For the lady sighed a dreary sigh 
And dropped a tear as they drifted by. 

For only this, alack, alack, 

Did she turn in haste and hie her back. 

Well, ah well, "The mice will play," 

Says the proverb old, "when the cat's away." 

Long enough did the lady wait, 
Ghostly and wan at her castle gate. 

For her roystering hinds kept holiday, 
But they came at last in sore dismay. 

And opened it wide for her to pass. 
Then closed it again, alas! alas! 

When they closed her castle gate that day 
They closed her castle gate for aye 

On the still white lady who nevermore 
Descended again from the ivied tower 

Where all alone her life had passed. 
Where all alone she died at last. 



IS THERE A NORTH? 

Then speak, for the world is listening. Oh, ye brave; 
Shall Kansas be a home for the free, or a hell for the slave? 

Is there a North? shall it be told 

Her patriots' sons, her freemen bold, 

Hath not a hand out-stretched to save 

From the tyrants' p jwer, the trembling slave? 

Hath now no tongue of flre to tell. 

To every land where man may dwell. 

On furthest shore and widest sea 

That God made all men letter free ! 

Nor hath unto oppression said, 

" Back, here shall thv proud waves be stayed;" 

Thou Shalt not cast thy withering curse 

O er our fair land it shall not nurse 

The viper vile — nor will we kiss 

With fawning smile, a shame like this; 

Nor will we clasp thine iron hand. 

Nor bow our heads at thy command. 

Is there a North? will her freemen see 

Their fathers' blood-bought freehold given 
To scathing blight of slavery, 

And curses of ofl'ended heaven? 
Say, shall its mountains proud and high, 

Its prairies wide and forests wild. 
Their gorgeous flowers and glowing sky 

Be cursed for aye, for aye defiled? 

Shall ceaseless wailings of despair, 

And tears of agony and blood. 
From a Paradise so wide and fair. 

Be the ofl:ering to God? 
Shall banded hordes of human ghouls, 

Tread on its dust the rights of mim. 
There buy and barter human souls? 

Speak out and say it, ye who can! 
Duquesne Boro, May 29, 1856. 



Oh, little page, is it anxious fears 

That cause your sighs and cause your tears? 

Speak, malapert, glib popinjay, 
What befell our lady on that evil day? 

Sure witch or warlock passed her by 
And blighted her with its evil eye. 

Oh, nothing our ladj did befall, 
Wrtches and warlocks be folly all. 

Only a man that was bald and grey 
And a lady fair passed by that way. 

Nothing had they to do with blight 
But my lady's face turned marble white. 

And she turned to the path that homeward led 
And homeward like an arrow sped. 

Ye who opened the gate have said. 
My lady's livid face looked dead. 

As the face of her corpse will be when hid 
Forever under her coffin lid. 

When shrived of sin and shrived of sorrow. 
She has entered Heaven's long to-morrow. 

Never since then have her lips turned red. 
Never since then has slfe looked glad. 

And the whispering tongues that seldom lie. 
Say that my lady is going to die. 

That none will miss her in all the land. 
But the Spaniel that fondly licks her hand. 

Alas, for him, and, alas, for me. 
If this, indeed, is going to be. 

For the open moor and the Winter sky. 
Will be the only home of he and I. 

Down the chancel cold and grey, 
Where her dust moulders away, 
A marble slab since she departed 
To the world's says, "Broken hearted." 



YANKEE DOODLE'S CUP OF TEA. 

A century has come and gone 
Since Yankee Doodle rose at dawn, 
To fume and fret o'er botheration. 
That filled his soul with sore vexation. 
Public questions much perplexed him; 
Parliament for years had taxed him 
On bag and baggage the utn o;t shilling, 
And never asked if he was willing. 
When he sent his king a meek petition, 
George stormed of traitors and sedition; 
Gave no redress, but only — dang him ! — 
Threatt^ned he forthwith would hang him. 
And Mr. Doodle, sorely humbled. 
O'er his morning porridge loudly grumbled: 
"• For thorough cussedness," said he, 
" King George beats all I ever see. 
Law sakes ! now, but 1 really wonder, 
Does he think I'm such a gander 
He'll pick me henceforth and forever. 
And ask my leave or license, never?" 
And Mr. Doodle thought 'twas fearful 
To lose his feathers. Almost tearful. 
He gabbled, kicked and loudly bickered, 
Squabbled, compromised and dickered. 
Until the news came o'er the sea 
Old King George had taxed the tea. 

Then Mr. Doodle raged and thundered. 

Like other men with pockets plundered. 

" What: taxed the tea! " It almost choked him 

To say the words they so provoked him — 

Not that he used much tea, 'tis true; 

A cup on Sunday, maybe two. 

But then to tax it was a blow. 

Smacked of authority. And so 

He buttoned his red wammus up. 

And brushed his homespun breeches down, 

Said to his pony, " Come, gee up!" 

And took the road to Boston town. 

While jogging bravely onward, he 

Indulged in this soliloquy: 



SELECTIOlfS OF POEMS. 



"I can't believe, I don'f believe, 
The Lord Jehovah ever gave 
With a scepter and a crovrn 
Divine right to trample down, 
To grind beneath his iron heel, 
To crush beneath his hand ol steel. 
All humanity — if he, 
Whose that crown and scepter be, 
Do so think lit. Now God help me, 
I can't, I don't believe such thing. 
The Lord Jehovah is my King." 

Boston town, when he got there, 
Was wrath and fury everywhere. 
They'd sinli the nation in the sea 
Before they'd drink King George's tea; 
So Mr. Dooiile and his freres. 
With faces blacked and smothered jeers 
By the night's still darkness hid; 
But history tells us what they did. 
Though not what Yankee Doodle said. 
For Mr. Doodle said, said he, 
" Boston harbor, here is tea ! 
You can make it leisurely, 
Draw it with the winds and tide. 
In ihe ocean's cup— 'tis deep and wide- 
Will hold it well, will hold it long, 
Whether it be weak or strong. 
And if upon the other shore 
A rampant lion fiercely roar, 
Louder than the ocean wave 
When tempest lashed, louder rave 
Of unsparing vengeance; wildly flaunt 
A battle flag; and jeering vaunt 
Of the armed legions wherewith he 
Can sweep the land and sweep the sea 
Of treason's traitors : sweep so bare, 
With Are and sword, that never there 
One broken fragment's tattered slued 
Will tell the living of the dead:— 
Then, ocean, lift you tempest's voice, 
Thunder-toned, and for us say 
To his indignant Majesty : 
'Poor Yankee Doodle, paltry knave, 
Has scarce bare ground to dig his grave. 
Between the unbroken wilderness. 
Red with ferocious savages. 
And the ocean's surf, before which he 
Struts like your furious Majesty. 
And roars as loud, and swears your tea 
Shall turn the ocean's brine to gall 
For you and your armed legions all 
To drink or drown in ! Without fail. 
With leaden raia and iron hail, 
And fire and sword he'll face each foe, 
And lay his proud oppressor low. 
Chafl^of the thrashing floor shall be 
His kith and kindred all, ere he 
Or they shall be the slaves 
Of kingcraft. In their bloody graves. 
If not on earth, they can be free ; 
And loud he shouts for liberty, 
And vows Jehovah is his king. 

Your Majesty, the forests ring 

From end to end, from sea to sea. 
With his seditious blasphemy.' " 

This bitter message o'er the main 
The tempest carried. Not in vain. 
Fearful as an earthquake's shock 
Soon dashed over Plymouth Rock, 
Loudly thundering, wide and far, 
A tidal wave of bloody war! 

Through seven long years of deadly strife. 

With musket, sword and scalping knife, 

Yankee Doodle in the front 

Bore the battle's fiercest brunt. 

Ignominious defeat 

And disastrous retreat 

Sorely tried his heart of oak, 

But shot and shell and sulph'rous smoke 

Of thundering cannon, belching death 

Never shook his hope or faith 

Silenced not his battle cry 

" On for God and liberty ! " 

"Wavered never cjay ov night, 



From Bunker Hill to Yorktown's Height, 
Where oppression and oppressor too. 
Met their final Waterloo. 

Then pledge to-night his memory. 
His unknown gra\ e, his cup of tea. 
Beneath the eagle's outspread wings. 
While " Hail Columbia " loudly rings— 
And Stars and Stripes float o'er the free 
Daughters and sons of Liberty. 
Millvale, April 9th, 1875. 



MIDNIGHT. 



18T5-'76. 

I stood upon the threshold wide 

That, unseen, arches to divide 

Eternity and time; 

It reached the countless ages through; 

Was spanned by heaven's ethereal blue 

And starry depths sublime. 

Midnight moments almost flown 
Were to my feet the stepping stone 
Between two centuries. Dying one — 
The other entering 

Time's wide arena. Between a bier 
And a cradle bed, that each a year 
Did to the other bring. 

While loud-mouthed cannon thundering. 
And clanging bells and shrieking steam. 
And a shouting multitude 

Welcomed the new born to the earth 
And nation, at whose lowly birth 

In the new world's desert stood 

Liberty with flaming sword; 
While Independence defiant, poured 
Into rebellion's cup 

Freedom's wine, ruby as morn; 
" Take," said he to the new born 
Nation, " Drink it up." 

"My son and the son of Liberty, 
Live forever, brave and free." 

Then seated him on Plymouth Rock, 

Placed his hands on a musket's lock; 
Placed his feet on a cannon's stock; 
Their broad-sword by his side; 

Showed him the wilderness before, 
Showed him the ocean brimming o'er 
With resistless tide; 

And louder than voice of wind or wave, 
Asked why so base as be a slave 
Or vassal held in chains. 

"Independence and Liberty 
Gives a continent to thee! 

Keep, defend, maintain 

"With our good broad-sword and thy bi'avery, 
Let none but God rule over thee — 
Jehovah be thy king." 

A mighty hand on the threshold fell; 
'Twas the hand of Time, and like a knell 
It struck the midnight hour 

With its last moments suddenly. 
Independence armed cap a pie. 

Stepped on the threshold wide. 

A flash like the flame of countless wars. 

And Liberty girt with stripes and stars 

Stood by the warriors' side, 



8 Don Fkittakee's Histoky. 

started to dciuolisli the landlady, lie would raze the house to the ground. 
He'd show her such barefaced robbery wouldn't do. But out in the hall he 
remembered ihat he had undertaken a similar feat once before and got razed 
hunself and got into the lockup besides, where, having ample time to count 
his expenditures as well as his money, was soon convinced that nobody had 
stolen his money, he not having any left to steal; and now he also remembered 
that upon that occasion he \vould have had to go to jail but that his insulted 
iandladv i)aid his fine, so Don reconsidered his proi)osed action and fell to 
counting uj) costs since Saturday night, which was pay night. Boarding, 
fourteen dollars; tick at the beer hall, one dollar seventy cents; the cursed 
old hack, four dollars; toll, seventy-live cents; supper, one dollar and fifty 
cents; strawberries and cream, fifty cents; smashes, juleps, cigars for him- 
self and five other fellows, two dollars; black-eyed little girl, fifty 
cents. 'Tis the last feather breaks the camel's back. This last item nearly 
threw Don into a fit. What kind of a little girl was that ? A little girl 
like that should be rawhided if she ever again presented herself to him. He 
would never set foot in that door again. Then Don counted up twenty-five 
dollars from twenty- seven leaves two. Whew! and two weeks to pay night. 
Would time and space permit a detailed account of Don's financiering from 
this time forth would edify and instruct the most skillful and expert in the 
cash department of our "Grind well governing machine." The masterly 
lying that tided him out of one straight into and through each succeeding 
one, not only feeding and clothing himself with the best, but entertaining 
himself and Sue with drives, picnics, excursions, making the summer for 
them both one continuous holiday and golden harvest of the fruits of other 
peoi)le's toil, was lying that out-heroded all belief, in fact dimmed the halo 
around that character in Iludibras who was ' ' for profound and solid lying 
much renowned," with lying, in short, he paid everything his wages 
couldn't pay and Don's wages couldn't pay one-half of Don's expenditures. 
The summer wound up with one of the grandest picnics Don and Sue had 
ever known, and that })icnic, for reasons your veritable historian will now 
set forth, may be said to be the end of Don's palmy days in our burg. 

'Tis a curious fact with regard to the appliances and materials used in 
clinker factories that they all have a strong tendency to bust; even cold 
water, a bucketful of which outside of a clinker factory is usually a very 
harmless agency, inside of one is fearfully destructive unless carefully han- 
dled. The day following the great picnic Don's head was full of that jolli- 
fication. How could he remember the busting propensities and tendencies 
of things around him ? So he gave a bucketful of water a sudden emptying 
ovei' a mass of molten clinker that busted both ^vater antl clinker. The 
busting scattered it and melted clinker over everybody round, Don excepted, 
(a fool foi- luck), but that the blisters of all sizes that operated like the stings 
of so many hoi'uets gave the recipients of this "fire shower of ruin" enough 
to do, I)(jn would have had a [)icnic on hand; would have waltzed him 
lound to the same tune that a picnic that day a year ahead of him eventually 



Don Fiii'i'TAKEK's History. 9 

did. As it was tlierc was a grand rumpus. Tho workmen raged, the 
bosses stormed, most of all the maiuigei' (the great "1 ain" Don called hiiri, 
swearing that he had his eyes on everything and his nose in everything other 
people said, that was a manager's business), as it" to verify J)on's opinion lie 
was instantly on hand and expressed himself so emphaticially, though not 
usually demonstrative, that Don knew but for the great pressure of work 
and the great scarcity of hands he (Don) would have lit on his head 
outside the high enclosure. This "jen de esprit" soured the whole establish- 
ment, especially the blistered portion of it, who always looked black at ]Jon 
and hinted broadly at the ex])ediency of hanging a few of the idiots who 
jeopardize other men's lives with their reckless folly, going themselves scott 
free of suifering, expense and loss. This was very sour for Don, indeed, 
so much so that all the balls, oyster suppers, fairs and revivals hardly made 
amends to Don; in fact, but for Sue 'twould have been insuppoi'table. Hut 
suddenly the tension relaxed, another idiot busted another bucket of water 
and with worse eli'ect, and Don's escapade was forgotten. And this brought 
the spring and the spring brought the summer and the summer brings pic- 
nics. So there was one on the tapis pretty soon. Don, by this time in the 
matter of tick, was nearly swamped. Creditors' scurvy dogs dogged him 
everywhere. How to keep enough money out of their clutches to meet the 
requirements of the picnic was taxing Don's brains to the utmost. Since 
the calamitous busting of the bucket of water, Don had kept a wary eye on 
all tools and materials entrusted to his care. The ominous look of the great 
"I am" on that occasion had made an impression for once on his mental 
caoutchouc. But his present financial dilemma was enough to obliterate 
even the existence of the great "I am" in both mind and memory. Lost 
in abstruse study of the dilemma's manifold horns, a bi-an-new shovel 
dropped at Don's heels to lie wliile he tried to steady his bewildered wits 
with a glass of beer. But it didn't lie. An ever- watchful, sticky -fingered 
Frittaker passed that way and the bran-new shovel clave to him. An angry 
altercation between Don and his boss followed. The ubiquitous "I am" 
was uumediately on hand with a face more ominous than ever. Pie listened 
and went away. Saturday was pay night. When Don, in his turn, stood 
at the window, the cashier, cash in hand, quietly said, "Shovels cost a dol- 
lar and half now, Mr. Frittaker. ' ' Don felt as if a valcano was lifting him 
oflf his feet, but remembering the ominous face of the gr^at "I am, " he 
replied in a tone of cheerful acquiescence that he knew it. The cashier 
counted out his wages less the price of one shovel and followed up the cash 
with a brief statement that henceforth the clinker factory would evohite and 
revolute without Mr. Frittaker's assistance. If Don a minute before felt as 
if a volcano was lifting him, he now felt as if two volcanoes were lifting him 
and an earthquake beneath them were urging them to lift. A torrent of 
abusive billingsgate rushed to his teeth, but somehow circumstances always 
"cabin crib confine" geniuses of Don's peculiar stamp. A recollection of a 
former experience rushed with his wrath. On that occasion he had been so 



10 



SELECTION'S OF POEMS. 



A siilphuioxis cloud of smoke and flame 
O'er dead and dying broods the same. 
And tlie waiting vultures perched so high, 
You see no speck upon the sky? 
In countless thousands, bye and bye, 
To the harvest of the cannon ball 
Swift as meteors will fall, 
And ravening hawk and greedy crow 
And wolf and wild dog. Well we know 
All will be there. And they will glean 
The swathes of war so white and clean 
You could not tell, Heaven save the mark, 

So white are the skeletons that lie 

Bleaching under the open sky. 
Which is the Russian or which the Turk. 

Waxing crescent or waning cross. 
This moral is taught the world and us. 
The vultures fatten on the losers' loss 
And the gainers' gain. But I forgot 
That Hassan's story this is not. 

Hassan dwelt on a grassy plain 

Beyond the desert. On Selim's mane 

A caressing hand he fondly laid 

While this to Selim he softly said: 

"Selim, my Selim, the Christian dog, 

Detested infidel, whets his sword 

'Gainst sacred Islam. Allah, Lord, 

The vile bibber of unholy wine, 

Devourer of the flesh of swine. 

Beastly, abominable Giour, 

In what age or day or hour 

Hath not he the mosque profaned ; 

Hath not he the hai-em stained 

With ravage, pillage, fire and sword 

Whene'er victorious. Avenge us, Lord, 

God of all Goils, in this holy war. 

Steel each swor<l and scimitar 

With hate and vengeance. And, Lord, be riven 

The infidel's host. The winds of Heaven 

Scatter like dust in the day of his flight 

From the face of the earth the last trace of his might. 

And the utmost border of his land 

Be hot and bare as the desert's sand 

When Islam and the vulture's maw 

And the wild dog's ravening jaw 

Have passed over it, like the breath 

Of the dire Sirocco, leaving only death. 

Skeletons white and ashes grey 

Reaching from dawn to the close of day. 

The dastard dog ! The infidel ! 

Allah el Allah. My Selim, well. 

The desert waits iis, and Islam's host 

Is on its border. When we have crossed 

Your fairest speed, my Selim, boast. 

And swift as the wind be the fliglit of that speed. 

Of the sword of your master, the prophet hath need." 

The only life where all was dead 

Across the burning, sandy plain 

Sans saddle, bridle, girth or rein 

Our wild Mazeppa sped. 

Arrow of vengeance bai-bed with hate, 

Frenzied zeal like the hand of fate. 

Urged him on with bated breath 

To the carnival of death. 

Not an instant Selim quailed. 

Or his mastei', completely mailed 

With an impervious panoply 

Of fierce, unsparing bigotry. 

Steeled heart and soul to woe or bliss. 

He left his wife without a kiss, 

His mother without a sigh. 

To his bronze baby, no good-bye; 

From his boy Hassan at his play 

Without a tear he turned away, 

"God and the prophet called," he said: — 

His life was theirs, and theirs the blade 

His fingers clenched, and both weie made 

To wreak God's vengeance on God's foes. 

Allah el Allah, heavy blows. 

And deadly thrusts should loudly tell 

In numbers of the infidel. 

That he had sei-ved life's purpose well. 

And forth he sped across the sand, 



Glowed like the flame of a burning brand. 

No waving grasses by the wayside grow. 

No spreading branches cool shadows throw, 

Never a droj) of morning dew. 

Nor song of bird the ages through; 

The desert highroad ever knew. 

Only "ships of the desert stranded lie" 

On the sandy hillocks they flit by. 

He who left his mother without a sigh, 

His wife without a kiss. 

Our Hassan, did he care for this? 

No; steed and rider, twin like twain 

Across the desert swept amain. 

Through torrid air that nothing stirred. 

But the .-and-dust cloud that blurred 

Selim's shadow and his own. 

That was all, and that alone. 

Pa;ssed with them the sphinx by, 

She who watched with sleepless eye, 

Tireless, ceaseless, vigil kept 

O'er the ages while they swept, 

(Sweeping with the fierce cyclone) 

Mountains of oblivion. 

O'er wretched millions' unpaid toil 

O'er vaunting triumph's richest spoil, 

Over artist skill and lore, 

Over bygone literature. 

Painted well on marble walls, 

Graven deep on granite halls, 

Finite omnipotence had built 

For eternity and dwelt 

There, enthroned in regal state 

And lawless empire o'er the fate 

Of the world crouched at his feet. 

'■•For I am God," he said. Alack ! 

World-wide empire, where is your wreck? 

Overwhelming tides of dust 

Entombed his power and pride, 

His lowliest slave beside. 
Crown, throne and empire lost. 
To-day the wandering Arabs dwell 
Above the highest pinnacle 
Of Egypt's glory. Free they rove 
Upon the sand drifts piled above 
Imperial Egypt. Egypt lost 

In the impenetrable gloom 

Of earth's inevitable doom. 
Nothingness at last. 

Hassan saw or knew it not, 

Of it Hassan never thought. 

Passed the pyramids sublime; 

That alone had cancelled time, 

And the M'reck of ages by. 

With a cold, impassive eye. 

With the rigid, stony stare 

Of the sphinx o'er the glare 

Of the desert, Hassan saw 

White- vpinged sails from sea to sea 

Bearing many an argosy; 

Through the rift that cleft in twain 

(When Lesseps gave the orient 

In marriage to the Occident) 

Two continents from main to main. 

On he sped upon his way. 

Sped by night and sped by day. 

Soon a blank of desert lay 

Behind him, and before 

Billows on billows, o'er and o'er. 

Rolled to the Bosphorous. 

A ship was on the strand, and loose 

Her sails, for she was leaving-— 

Even then her anchor heaving. 

And he and Selim sailed away 

Forever! Yes, for aye. 

He turned to look once more. Behold ! 

Across the desert's yellow gold 

Dotting all the horizon 

Were hundreds riding down. 

Rode as he his ^elim rode 

For their country, prophet, God. 



'Twas evening! O'er a grassy plain 
Selim sped with might and main 



SELECTIONS OF JPOEMS. 



11 



Past marching ranks of cavalry, 
('Twas Selim's fleetest passed them by) 
Their crescent standards all aflame 
With sunset fire. On they came. 
Behind battalions thundering down 
Toward the far-oft' horizon, 
Where battle lightnings Inrid flashed 
Its thunder against thunder crashed. 
"On, my Selim!" Hassan said. 
And, shouting vengeance, dre^ his blade. 
Rushed into the thickest fray 
Of blood and slaughter. Selims neigh 
Sounded like a clarion shrill. 
Echoing Hassan's savage yell. 
Savage Cossacks, fierce and tall, 
Faced them like a rampart's wall. 
. All ah el Allah ! God is God ! 
There in toiTents gushed the blood 
Dripped from Hassan's streaming sword, 
Dripped from Selim's reeking mane, 
From many a deep and deadly gash. 
The strong arm's well-directed slash, 
Of foes by Hassan slain. 
Selim reeled as if to fall, 
Rallied, charged again the wall. 
Breached it ! Steed and rider fell ! 
Hassan to the girdle cleft in twain, 
A sabre slash through Selim's brain. 
Allah el Allah! It is meet, 
Selim at his master's feet 
Where the shock of battle spent 
Its utmost fury. Where the rent, 
Blood dripping banners of bigotry, 
Turk or Russian won the day 
Somewhere. Was it Plevna, say? 

ill vale Boro., September, 1877. 

FAIR ELI-EN AND THE BROWN GIRL. 



Lord Thomas stood by his father's side 
On the towers of their castle grand. 

And looked o'er the country far and wide, 
And theirs was that goodly laud. 

Theirs the cottages far and wide 

And many a stately hall. 
And the town that reached to the river side 

With even its moat and wall. 

Villages many and many a mine, 

And ships that come and go. 
And flocks and herds and goodly gear — 

Their wealth did no man know. 

"And now, my son," the father said, 

'•This wealth will all be thine, 
A»d thou must choose a wife whose wealth 

And rank will equal thine. 

"Yon gibbet on our topmost tower 

Our lowest donjon keep 
Are for our mortal foes, but yet 

My only son will eke 

"Be feeding for the carrion crow, 
Or for our donjons hideous years 

Black silent ages, far below 
The reach of human ears, 

"If he would bate one tittle of 

My pomp and power and pride 
And seek among interiors born 

To woo and win a bride. 

"Lord Douglas hath a nut-brown maid 

With more than regal mien. 
And more her dower in gold and land 

Would well beflt a queen. 

"And more than well it doth befit 

My only son and heir 
To see in Lady Maud his mate 

And future wife in her." 

"Alack, my father, for I love 
Fair Elinor more than well, 



And she hath lineage good and grace 
And beauty. Do not tell 

"Me that I may not wed the love 

That is my life's delight, 
I rather would your gallows or 

Your donjons darkest night. 

"And you do know, dear father," he said, 
■'How fair are fair Elinor's hands." 

"I only know, my son," he said, 
"She has no other lands." 

And down from those high battlements 

Lord Thomas sighing came 
To seek his mother. Ill he knew 

That proud and haughty dame. 

"The daughter of the Douglas proud 

My father wills I wed. 
How well I love fair Elinor, 

You know, dear mother," he said. 

"And, well you know, dear mother," he said, 

"How fair is sweet Elinor's face." 
"And well I know, dear son," she paid, 

"She has no other grace. 

"The brown girl she has house and lands. 

Fair Elinor she has none. 
I, too, so will and do command. 

Bring me the brown girl home." 

Lord Thomas he mounted his milk-white steed 

At the dawning of the day. 
Lord Thomas he put spurs to his speed 

And rode in haste away. 

Like a ghostly courier fast and far 

He flitted o'er dale and down. 
"Is it tidings you bring of peace or war?" 

They asked at each tower and town. 

But he answered not, but rode like one 

Was riding for his life. 
He flif s, said they, from the headsman's axe 

Belike he has killed his wife. 

And he, alack, he loved but her 

Could never be his wife. 
And thought but of the fair, sweet face 

Would haunt him all his life. 

With the rising sun of another day 

He reined in his milk-white steed 
At the portal of an ivied tower, 

And if his heart did bleed. 

None so ready as Elinor's self 

To let Lord Thomas in. 
"Speak, what are the tidings of weal or woe 

To Elinor you bring?" 

Oh, ghastly and wan grew the young Lord's face, 

Her's white as her marble hail. 
"I come to bid you to my wedding. 

Fair Elinor; that is all." 

"And if you bid me to your wedding. 

That's woe enough for me. 
Mike haste, depart, Lord Thomas," she said. 

"In haste I follow thee." 

Lord Thomas he bowed to the Lady fair. 
And mounted his milk-white steed. 

And with the haste that he came there. 
Returned with the selfsame speed. 

And Elinor hied to her mother's home, 
"For thy blessing I have come. 
I'm bid to Lord Thomas' wedding, and 
In haste would fain be gone." 

"Few will be your friends, my child. 
The bride's your mortal foe, 



12 



SELECTIONS OF POEMS. 



For your own sake, my daughter, be wise, 
To Lord Thomas' wedding don't go." 

'I care not that I friends do lack, 

I f ear no mortal foe, 
Be it for life or be it for death 

To Lord Thomas' wedding I'll go." 

She dressed herself in sciirlet red, 

Her waiting maids in green. 
And evei-y town that they rode by 

They tooK her to be some queen. 

And when they came (o Lord Thomas' castle 

The walls with mirth did ring, 
Yet who so ready as Lord Thomas himself 

To let fair Elinor in? 

He took her by her lily-white hand, 

He led her up the hall 
■Where regal in jeweled grandeur sat 
The bride and the nobles all. 

"The fairest lady in all the land 

Has come to our feast" said he. 
"The woman I love best in all the world, 

Warm let her welcome be." 

The brown bride's face grew black with rage. 

With hatred and with scorn. 
"Do you flaunt me with your paramour? 

Would God I had ne'er been born." 

"There is a well in her father's garden. 

It is all under a tree. 
Not purei than his Elinor's self 

Its crystal waters be. 

"You are my wife, I do command. 

Unbend that frowning brow 
And kiss her whom a prince might kiss 

Or eke our sovereign bow. 

"Nay, God, what is it, my Elinor! 

Alack! Oh, woe betide. 
Her dagger in your heart. The fiend 

Is with your heart's blood dyed. 

"Oh, speak ! One parting kiss, one glance. 

What, not one last good-bye. 
And in my arms and on my breast 

So bloodily to die." 

He laid her softly, gently down. 

She looked like peaceful sleep. 
Too horror stricken everyone 

To either speak or weep. 

And turning to his scowling bride. 

Said, "Wife, we will not mourn, 
But we will hasten after her 

Who never can return." 

From brow to chin her frowning face 

Fell like a flash in twain. 
His sword dripped gore from hilt to point. 

She never breathed again. 

He placed the hilt against the floor, 

The point against his bi-east. 
And these three lovers evermore, 

God grant their souls find rest. 

And horror seized that festive throng. 

They fled in sore ilismay. 
As humbly as the humblest hinds 

In their haste that evil day. 



When this old castle in a cloud 
Of ruin storms the sky." 

And he made good his fearful threat. 

Like ravens on the wing 
There came on every flowing tide 

The ships that brought them in. 

From o'er the sea, wild savages. 

They camped upon the coast. 
They swarmed like locusts and devoured 

All things, that ravening host. 

A funeral pyre. Yea, God. By night 

It did eclipse the moon. 
The stars went out in the lurid light, 

By day eclipsed the sun. 

Cottage and hall and tower and town. 

Lit as with lightning's stroke. 
In the flery maelstorm vanished all, 

In ashes, dust and smoke. 

And he who built that castle old 

Had said it would defy 
The storming of the centuries 

Through all eternity. 

Yet ramparts, towers and parapets 
Seethed like destruction's leaven 

Beneath the cannon balls that struck 
Like thunderbolts from Heaven. 

Ruthless destruction faced at last 

Blank waste of land and sky. 
And from the famine stricken coast 

Were fain in turn to fly. 

These the savage human wolves. 

Gathered from wood and wold. 
With nothing human in their breasts 

But greed of spoils and gold. 

They spread their canvas wide and white. 

The winds blew out to sea. 
When in the moon's weird, waning light, 

Think what their terrors be. 

For high the vanished towers again 

Spring up like shafts of light, 
And all their battlements are manned 

By spectres gaunt and white. 

And banners like white winding sheets 

Float o'er the ghostly walls. 
And ghostlier still a spectral host 

Dance through those spectral halls. 

And eke as struck the midnight hour 

Behold a bridal train 
Steps lightly through the phantom walls 

To the festal board again. 

Again Lord Thomas clad in mail 
Gleams like the moon's wan light, 

And leads a phantom Klinor 
In a shroud, how snowy white. 

Again the brown girl's face grows black, 

Her jeweled dagger gleams; 
Again fair Elinor sinks in death. 

And red her life blood streams 

Adown her winding sheet and shroud 
And the brown girl's bridal robe and train ; 

And her bridal veil is spattered all 
With the gruesome crimson rain. 



But Douglas, vowing vengeance dire, 

Took up the hapless bride. 
"Poor daughter, dead. Your funeral pyre 

Shall light the world, and wide 

O'er land and *ea, the ashes rain, 
And smoke and cinders fly 



Again the brown girl reels and sinks 

Beside her victim fair. 
Again Lord Thomas seeks in death 

Refuge from love's despair. 

Then shrieking all, with one accord, 
The ghostly companie 



SELECTIONS OF POEMS. 



13 



Fled wildly through the spectral walls 
That crumbled silently 

Into the moon's pale beams again 

And vanished from the earth 
With all their ghostly panoply 

And ghostly woe and mirih. 

And they who spellbound watched that night 

This orgie of the dead, 
With oar and rudder sought to speed 

The winds by which they fled. 

Their palsied hands with tremblng haste 

Urged for their native coast. 
Each saw the other old and grey, 

A trembling, white-haired ghost. 

Transformed, transmuted by that hour 

Of spectral horror, every one 
Grew old and grey who earthly fears 

Of hell or heaven ne'er had known. 

Appalling blackness swallowed up 

The sky and moon and stars, 
And peals of thunder shook the earth 

Like the castle's falling towers. 

And the tempest shrieked like the terrible cries 

Of the wives and mothers slain. 
And maiden and child who pleaded Avild 

For mercy, all in vain. 

They spread all canvas to the blast, 
The mountain waves they climbed. 

What were the dangers gathering fast 
To the horrors lay behind ? 

And dawn broke on a rock-bound coast, 

The breakers rolling high. 
Their native land was that o'er head 

Amid the clouds and sky. 

Brook you delay who can or may 

In some dark, trying hour. 
They knew none. In the darksome grey 

Of earliest dawn, they did not cower. 

They set each helm and each oaken prow 
For their native land and the clouds and sky, 

And mount on the breakers. Bravely now 
In the raging surf they are stranding high. 

Where the sea birds perch, where the ledges hing 
O'er fathomless depth, the breakers roar, 

The winds lash flercely, they sway and swing. 
But the waves urge on to the rock-bound shore. 

And these fierce, free hooters, grim and grey, 
Do they bend their knees and thank the Lord, 

And land their booty, tlieir priceless prey. 
Gathered with Are anil sword. 

Nay, nay. As if all sense bereft 

Each to the mountains wildly fled. 
Neither to the right nor the left looked he 

Who was flying from the dead. 

And when Lord Douglas viewed the land 
From his castle's towers at eventide. 

He saw them stealthily hurrying down 
The rugged mountain side. 

Out of the woods on the mountain's brow 
Like fugitives flying in wild retreat, 

And the mad disorder of those who seek 
To save their lives after dire defeat. 

For his castle gate sped those flying feet. 

"By niv halidom," said the haughty chief, 
"Gabriel's trump must have called the dead 

Out of their graves to the judgment seat, 

"Else whence come all these grey old men?" 
But they clamored loud at his castle gate. 



"Oh, master, chieftian, take us in; 
Judgment pux'sues us, we cannot wait. 

"One and all that we put to the sword. 

Sword in hand are in hot pursuit 
Of our living souls. Open, dear lord. 

Oh, open, open, for hand and foot. 

"Body and soiil we served you well. 

We spared no creature. We slaughtered all 
That had breath of life. Left no tongue to tell 

One word of the past. Not even a wall 

"Of tower and town . Oh, chieftain, hear 

Your vassals' call. Make no delay. 
We be all dead men with the deadly fear 

Of the immortal souls we could not slay. 

"For their souls have followed us o'er the sea. 
For terror and horror look how we be 
Grown grey and old. And the twilight falls 
Master, we die before your walls." 

And they opened the gates. They were maniacs all 
And raved in wild frenzy. 'Twas a gruesome sight 

For they fled in terror from hall to hall. 
From the donjons keep to the battlements height. 

Davtime or nighttime brought nosurcease. 

To reason, to menace, was all in vain. 
In friends and foes they saw only ghosts, 

And fled in wild terror, might and main. 

And Douglas that never knew h\iman fear, 

Or human pity, or spared a foe. 
Grim old savage, was powerless here 

In his own stronghold to strike a blow ; 

For the gruesomenr ss of he knew not what. 
That bound his hand and stayed his sword. 

So he called the priests. They control, he thought, 
All things infernal. We'll praise the Lord. 

And they came at once with their crosses and books 

And censers and wands to abjurgate 
The power of Satan and all ghostly spooks. 

And closed and barred the castle gate. 

And Douglas they packed to the Holy land. 

Crusading, they thought, would do him good. 
From eternal hell fire a burning brand 

Plucked just in time. He must and should 

Save his precious soul by serving God 
And the Holy Virgin and Holy Cross. 

And they called his clansmen from mountain and 
wood, 
And equipped them all without further loss 

Of precious time, both foot and horse. 

And the maniacs down in the donjons keep. 
Said the wise old Abbott, '"Who could sleep 

Where they are raving. And what is worse 

"The holy army needs moi'e men 
Bravely accoutred. May God them speed. 

For fighting tlie infidel Saracen 
They're the very thing in our urgent need." 

And a helmet on every crazy head. 

They followed a floating gonfalon 
That flashed iike a meteor as they sped 

Like the gust of a hurricane through the town 

To the river side, where their waiting chief 
Ruefully watched them board the ship. 
Believe me well that was a trip 

Surpassed the bounds of all belief. 

For they climbed the masts and they climbed the 
shrouds; 
They perched on the sails and looked like clouds 
In a stormy sky, or in shrieiiing crowds 
They fought for the helm or danced on the prow. 
And raced on the bulwarks, above, below. 
While the air grew green and the sun turned blue; 
Twas pandeoionium through and through, 



14 



SELECTiOIsrS OF POEMS. 



From the cursing captain to the swearing crew 
And frantic Douglas. Nobody knew 

One moment's sleep, one instant's rest, 
Or peace for aching head or breast. 

Douglas thought no more of his castle grand. 

He thought no more of his power and pride. 
He only wistied that in old Scotland 

The hour he w«s born he had only died. 

They sighted a headland in Palestine. 

Captain and crew fell on their knees 
And thanked the l^ord. And for the first time 

In all his life the Douglas crept 
Away alone and sat down and wept 

For sheer relief. They piped all hands 
And launched the boats. 'Twas fair and fine 
That day on trie coast of Palestine; 

But calamity comes upon all lands. 

With stealthy tread, that glowing sky 
And glowing sea were portents dire 
Of the molten lava and Greek lire 

Landed that day on the scorching dry. 

Edge of the open, sandy plain. 
White with the tents of the Saracen, 

And the molten lava poured amain 
When the raving lunatics, there and then. 

Poured into that camp. If from on high 
Greek fire had poureil from the open sky. 
The pall that instantly rose and spread 
. Like a midnight canopy overhead 

Had not been blacker. Storks and dust, 
Vultures and cormorants seethed and whirled 
Like the total wreck of a ruined world 

O'er the utter wrecK of the encamped host. 

Said the captain, "Good- bye to ye everyone. 

Your like was never on land or sea. 
Wherever you go 'neath the shining sun 

The opposite road is the road for me.' ' 

Every tack of his canvas at once he spread. 

When night closed in they were leagues away ; 

Yet black as ever that canopy 
Hung over that camp. If all were dead 

Or all were living. The cormorants 
And storks and dust !-till tilled the sky. 

'Tis well to believe their former haunts 
Were untenable when they perched so high. 

Europe's money had all run out, 
And Europe's credit just about. 
At the end of ten years time 
Fighting the wars in Palestine. 

The stay in proceedings was all complete 
When nobody had a crumb to eat. 
Victory's self brought dire defeat; 
The allied armies were in full retreat. 

And Douglas, old and dazed and grey, 

Was in the van in naked feet 
And a palmer's gown that evil day 

Through southern Europe's dust and heat. 

To beg his way to the highland hills, 
And his old stronghold, if so God wills; 
And he looked like a dried up skeleton 
A thousand years old if it was one. 

Meanwhile, in his stronghold while he was gone, 
The purgation had been a thorough one. 
His wife an abbess, his daughter a nun. 
And his son a priest and ambassador gone 
To the Holy Pope at Holy Rome 

On the road to Heaven and a good way uj). 
He would pretty soon get a Cardinal's hat 
For his priestly ways and devotion that 

Of holiest fervor was a brimming cup 
Flowing o'er without let or stop. 



All lusts of the flesh with the ghosts had gone; 
No carnal things in his castle walls. 
But holiest monks up and down its halls 

Chanted their litanies one by one. 

'Twas a perfect earthly paradise; 
Not a drop was left of his rare old wine, 
Not a grain of the gold would have filled a mine, 

Not a gem of his jewels beyond all price. 

Nothing was left of those carnal things 
And ungodly follies. A censer swings 
In every chamber, in every hall. 
And cross upon cross on every wall. 

And what before it had never been. 
From top to bottom 'twas thoroughly clean 
And full of sweet odors. Honey and ci-eam. 
Venison, pastries, rich and good. 
Praying monks need substantial food. 

And his grand old forests were full of deer, 
And fish and game, why lack good cheer? 
So one-half sat on their knees at prayers 
While tother half roasted and fried down stairs. 

Through all the ten years had come and gone. 
With baking and boiling they never got done. 
Cooking aud eating under the sun 
Was their only pleasure, their only ftin. 

They slept and rested when the day was done, 
And early next morning again begun 
To cook and eat. One evening late 
A palmer stood at the outer gate. 

A dazed and dead looking old galoot 
Covered with dust from head to foot. 
He said he had come from far Cathay 
Through the half of Europe tramped day by day 

With Coev de Lion. The dust on his cloak 
A.nd his naked feet, and hair so grey. 
Thick as the grime of a century, 

Proclaimed the truth of what he spoke. 

So they took him round to an empty stall, 
Piled plenty of straw against the wall. 
Gave him plenty to eat. 8aid the Abbott wise, 
"A creature like that is full of lice." 

Not one could tell how he got away. 
But the palmer was gone at break of day. 
His nest in tliM straw against the wall 
He left behind him, that was all. 

And they marvelled and wondered every one, 
The like of that thej had never known; 
And while they wondered, sure as fate. 
Twelve palmers stood at the outer gate. 

Hooded and cloaked from toe to chin. 

Wise or unwise, they let tliem in . 

The waider turned to shut the gate. 

The palmei's seized and bound him straight. 

A thousand highlanders rushed within 

And filled the castle far and wide 
With dirt uproar and tumultuous din. 

Each had a claymore at his side. 

A thousand rushed in through an open door 
Jso monk had ever seen before. 
The battlements shook with their wild acclaim; 
Douglas was home to his own again. 

To the nethermost depths of the donjon keep 
They hustled the monks that night to sleep. 
They piled no straw against the wall. 
Gave nothing to eat at all, at all. 

But they bustled them back at the dawn of day. 
The first old palmer that came that way; 
The same that slept in the pile of straw, 
Now as trim and as clean as a young jackdaw. 
Stood before them just as grey; 



SELECTIONS OF POEMS. 



15 



But booted and spurred, and the Douglas crest 

Upon his bonnet, and on the breast 

Of his Douglas plaid. And he said, "By my life, 

"If you don't send back my daughter and wife 
And my only son, ye be all dead men. 
And your abbey an ash heap. No Saracen 

Was ever a rogue like you thievish pack ; 

All things you have stolen send them back. 

"Money and jewels, gold and wine, 

To the last farthing's worth, all that's mine. 

You see yon gallows high on my towers, 
You see this scaffoUl inside my gate, 
Mark them well, for sure as fate, 
I'll hang or behead you every one. 
If you disobey me. Now, begone." 

They did his bidding without delay. 
They reached the abbey about midday; 
With hunger and terror and want of sleep, 
They were almost dead. Could only weep. 

But, praise the Lord, there was still a cask 
Of the Douglas wine in the abbey s keep, 

And baking had been the morning's task, 
Fresh venison pies and many a heap 

Of bannocks and cookies; and the brethren spread 

The midday board with a plentitude, 
Filled every stomach and settled each head. 
And full to the brim they went to bed. 

And rose next morning for consultation, 
And vented their burning indignation. 
They, the holiest, best of men. 
Berated as worse than the Saracen. 

And the wise old abbot, with sobs and tears. 
Told how they had toiled for him all the years, 
Tilled his fields and tended his fold 
Cleaned his fortress, filthy and old. 

And his savage son and inhuman wife 
And barbarous daughter, had tamed all through 
And civilized with enough to do; 

Had changed their very nature and life. 

And this was their recompense, braw and fine. 
And so all round they took more wine 
To brace them up. Without let or stop 
They ransacked the abbey from bottom to top. 

Soon they had loaded a caravan 

With the Lord knows what. On every hand 

Costly plate and garniture. 

They had brought it home to keep secure 

And safe for him whatever time 
He got back from the wars in Palestine; 
And all his gold and cash for the wine 
Packed all together, lost no time. 

They knew the Douglas and his ways 
And the wretched folly of unwise delays. 
And as to sacredness of abbess or nun, 

No use of talking, both went home, 

So impotent was bankrupt Rome 
Nothing could be said or done. 
So all their jewelry went along 
For the barbarous splendors of the old days- 
No doubt they'd forsake the new, godly ways, 
So they washed their hands of both abbess and nun 
And sent a courier jjost haste to Rome 

And a letter with him setting forth 

Their days were numbered on this earth 
If the young Lord Douglas didn't come home. 

With the utmost speed wouldn't break his neck. 
Our lives are the forfeit, hurry him back, 
And all saints and all angels everywhere 
Guard the road he comes with the greatest care. 

Surely Lord Douglas was crazy mad; 
His doings were awfully, hori-ibly bad. 
Every saint and virgin he could find 
And censer and cross the monk left behind 



That was gold or silver, the ungodly Scot 
Melted at once in a smelting pot ; 
Into shillings and guineas coined the whole lot, 
Nor with this sacrilege did he stop. 

Every sacred thing wasn't silver or gold 
He fired it out of his old stronghold; 
Filled moat and ditch with the awful wreck 
Of shrines, crosses and altars, beads a peck; 

And then went up to his battlements 

And relieved his mind with these comments: 

"Made my wife an abbess, my daughter a nun, 

And a drivelling priest of my only son. 

"Stole my money and swilled my wine 

While I was fighting in Palestine. 

Until I was sent up to Cathay 

Or somewhere near it, many a day 

A prisoner to the Saracen, 

Than whom there never were better men. 

They are everything good that we are not. 

Pope, priest or cardinal or Scot. 

"Have a civilization we do not know, 
Would be perfection, but here below 
There's always a hitch, some kind of deadlock. 
They've got a Koran, just like the stock 

"Of Bibles rotting in the ditch, 
Would God I could sweep the world of sich." 
,And up he got and went down stairs. 
And finding his abbess and nun at prayers 

Dispatched his gillies all through the land 
With invitations on every hand 
To every youthful cavalier, 
Prince, Duke or Earl, far and near. 

To his abbess and nun right away 
Announced they should have a gala day. 
And emptied every old oaken chest 
Of all their fardingales. Their richest, best 

Silks, velvets, laces, jewels rare. 

For bosom, girdle, neck and hair. 

And said, "Dear daughter, your best now wear, 

The flower of the land will all be here, 

"Maiden, wife and cavalier. 

And choose you a sweetheart, whate'er he be. 

Rich or poor, he shall please me 

If he pleases you, your happiness. 

"Think of it, daughter, first and last. 
Choose you wisely and choose you well. 
Of all the King's knights pick the flower. 
They will all be here in another hour. 

"Your poor, dead sister repenteth me, 
Sold like her you shall never be." 
And all the King's knights gathered in, 
Came like the sunshine and the wind. 

Frolicking, laughing, true as the steci 
In their burnished armor. Who could feel 
Like a drooling nun in such company? 
The nun departed, went to stay. 

As was his custom, the old Lord went 

In the evening late to his battlements; 

That night with the moonlight they were all aglow 

Everything sparkled like frozen snow. 

On the shiniest side of a snow-white tower, 
Sat a belted knight. One of the flower 
Of England's knighthood— rich and grand- 
Percy, Duke of Northumbeiiaud. 

And his own fair daughter, they saw him not, 
They were spooning moonshine out of a cup, 
And each was greedily drinking it up. 
Thought the old Chief as he stole away, 
Oh, happy hour ! Oh, lucky day! 
And he told his wife, and in ecstacy 
She clapped her hands, and the rest of her life 
The abbess was lost in the mother and wife. 



16' 



SELECTIONS OF POEMS. 



When it rains luck it always pours. 
Young Lord Douglas stood out of doors 
Wondering much at tne reveli'y. 
For an abbess and nun such company 
Was hardly fitting. And his cowl and gown 
Were meant lor a cloister ; dark his frown, 
But father and mother were wild with joy, 
To have him back, ttieir only boy ; 
And his mother adjured him when alone 
To speak no word about abbess or nun ; 
Your father 's a madman about the matter, 
Tne less that is said, dear, all the better;— 
And old Lord Douglas came that way. 
And prompt as ever said his say. 
"My eon, 'tis now the time of life 
You choose yourself a fitting wife ; 
Here's pick and choice within our gate, 
No better time to choose a mate. 

"Think not of our lineage, wealth and pride, 
There is love that is better than all three ; 
Choose you her who will give it thee ; 

Rich or poor, make her thy bride." 

The young lord answered neither yea nor nay, 
Look'ed perplexed and went his way ; 
But the cowl and gown vanished for aye ;— 
He wore a Douglas plaid that very day. 

And the old Lord Douglas made the company laugh 
About a prodigal son and a fatted calf ; 
And nobody spoke of a renegade priest, 
And they all the better enjoyed the feast. 

On his battlements when he got there. 
Belted knights and ladies fair 



Were spooning moonshine everywhere ; 
Most of all the renegade priest 

Was dishing up the glittering feast 
With laughing eyes and prodigal hand, 
To the sweetest lassie in all the land ; 

Poor as a church mouse, but not the least 

In rank and title. His dearest friend 
Was Robert, Duke of Albany, — 
Own brother of the king, and she 
Was his fair daughter. What better end 
Could come to his dearest hopes than this. 
Besides the cunning, wily priests, 
And their deep-laid scheme to underhand 
Secure nis fortress, gold and land 
To the brotherhood, it brought to grief. 

And smiling faces and happy looks. 

Laid forever the ghostly spooks, 

When on the double wedding day 

Old Lord Douglas and Albany 

Gave the smiling brides away 

To their belted knights. And his final say 

Old Lord Douglas said it then. 

He learned it from the Saracen— 

''Never for gold sell your love. 

Never for gain barter truth ; 
Justice reigns in Heaven above. 

Be yours its crown of immortal youth. 

Let us all with one accord, 
For this new doxology— 

Thank the Lord. 



Don frittaker's History. 



THE FRITTAKERS are a very numerous family — multitudinous, in fact. 
Historically, Don is the oldest, being the first to enjoy the supreme 
distinction of having his history written for him, and written by an 
historian who has every qualification to make it in every respect the best 
history that has ever been published or that can or will be published. 
•'World without end. Amen." 

But if Don is the oldest Frittaker historically, he is not the oldest Frit- 
taker chronologically by a million of years or so. There is evidence that 
would fill two or three British museums that the Frittakers existed in force 
and were divided into the sticky and slippery fingered branches when the 
moon was greener than any green cheese you ever saw, and green with 
grass, and all her craters were in full blast, and her atmosphere was the 
correct thing and had loaded both her poles with glaciers on the most scien- 
tific principles, and on the same principles by precipitation filled all her 
rivers, lakes and seas brim full of water. That was. a long time before 
Paradise materialized, and when it did the Frittakers came down from the 
land of Noh — and here I will only state that they came for no good for I 
am writing Don's history and not theirs. 

Two striking peculiarities characterize the Frittaker family and divide 
it into the two branches to which I have already alluded. 

To the fingers of one branch everything they touch sticks fast — to the 
fingers of the other branch nothing whatever will stick, least of all five 
dollar greenbacks or fractional currency. 

Don belongs to the other branch. 

They all say that this world owes them a living, and they all want a 
good fat one. And when this old world don't duff it up readily they all 
want other people's pockets to duff; that is, they want to square the circle of 
this present existence by dividing everything up all around once a year or so. 
If there is only enough to give fifty cents apiece all around, why, everything 
is square all around of course. That is their gospel, and Don's, for a fact, 
an authentic, incontrovertible fact. There will be no other kind of facts in 
this history, and I'm going to back up every fact with such veritable truths 
and indisputable evidence as will make Don's history a Webster's Unabridged 
Dictionary, a Book of Mormon and an indisputable Koran regarding Don 
and every Frittaker that ever has been or will be to every man, woman 



L 



2 Don Feittaker's Histoey. 

or child who could, should or would seek information regarding any or every 
Frittaker. And I'm going to write Don's history for him and gratis — for 
nothing — write it and not charge him a cent for it. Could or would any- 
body write Don's history cheaper than that ? Neither could anybody be 
better qualified for writing Don's history. Although I say it myself it is 
true, I say it again that I never make any mistakes, and that is the first, 
last and best qualification in the world for writing history. Who wants a 
history with mistakes in it ? A history with mistakes in it is a sheer de- 
lusion and a snare. A few errors may creep into Don's history, to err is 
human, and just like a woman ; , "for a woman lacks originality and genius 
and when decked with a little brief authority (as, for instance, writing history) 
becomes bold, arrogant and full of folly," says an old English writer. 

To begin with Don's history. When Don came to our burg a,nd worked 
in our clinker factory, is time enough to begin with Don's history. To 
go too far back, to begin too early would overdo Don's history at the very 
outset, would necessitate at least two volumes of introduction. To write 
two volumes of introduction to a history requires a Henry Thomas Buckle, 
and I ain't Mr. Buckle. And this of course will bring the constitutional 
grumblers to the front who will say, "Poor Don Frittaker, 't would have been 
better for you if she had been, ' ' and then other grumblers will ask, ' 'Why 
did'nt Don Frittaker write his own history, 'tis his own business," and that 
will make everybody very mad, and they'll all jabber together that by reason 
of interviewers and writers of history nobody gets a minute's peace now-a- 
days. That's the kind of thanks one gets when one sows universal benefac 
tions broadcast and writes a new bible worth a stack of old bibles. Don's 
first care when he came to our burg was to get a good boardinghouse, seven 
dollars a week, others were five and people said fair boardinghouses, too. 
But Don knew them under great stress of weather, Don had sought refuge 
in them off and on, but it took stress of weather to make him do it. You 
never saw a green cucumber there until they were two or three cents a 
piece, too long to wait in the spring by half. There is no stage in a cucum- 
ber's existence when it will refresh a fellow like the one that early in the 
spring costs eight or ten cents, and what holds good with regard to cucum 
bers holds equally good regarding tomatoes, strawberries and other luxuries 
of the season. Don knew it and an extra dollar or two was nothing when 
a fellow knew what the difference between a seven and a five dollar boarding- 
house reall}?^ was. The seven dollar boardinghouse Don selected had a stylish 
front, white blinds on all the windows; a dingy mean place makes a fellow 
cheap and Don hated cheapness. Don's new landlady's eyes were remark- 
able for an expression of wakeful, watchful anxiety as if the invading host 
of a mighty enemy had camped around about and she were a picket forever 
on duty, and the haggard, broken down look of her thin, sallow features 
strenghtened this impression in the minds of all but Don. Don Is mind knew 
no impressions of any kind, so great was its elasticity. The landlady wasn't 
a Frittaker, probably that more than anything else will account for her being 



Don Feittaker's HistorV. 3 

forever on guard and that taken altogether she contrasted unj^leasantly 
with the white blinds and the cheerful look of the clean, tidy house. 
Beside guarding the boarding house and some twenty boarders she guarded 
one hired girl, three children and a husband. The husband sick, always 
sick. Some people said 'twas the five or six dollars worth of medicine 
he took every week that kept him alive, other people said 'twas the five or 
six dollars worth of medicine every week that kept him sick, a wide differ- 
ence of opinion certainly. For the poor landlady her face grew more 
haggard, her eyes more anxious with every passing week. Her husband 
was a most loving, affectionate husband and father, too, and as usual when 
such is the case she was sacrificing all things in a frantic effort to save 
him. There was no counting of dollars but an endless repetition of 
"Heaven, Oh Heaven above, only spare me ray poor Johnny!" And this 
state of affairs that should have been a great comfort to the sick man was 
no comfort at all. He only thought, constantly thought, how in the end 
his poor wife must and would go under in her wild struggle for his life and 
kept mentally repeating over and over "would I was dead, would I was 
dead." So you see this was a landlady with her hands full of trouble and 
her heart full of sorrow, and her head full of the cares and perplexities that 
both trouble and sorrow furnished without stint. As might be expected, 
neither care nor perplexity grew smaller by degrees nor beautifully less 
by having Don Frittaker added to the number of her patrons. At his very 
first dinner Don remarked very first thing that cucumbers were remarkably 
early and cheap people said. "No, no," said the landlady, "they're not 
cheap, they're very dear, ten cents each." Was it possible, Don AA^as aston- 
ished, only ten cents, why that time last year they were fifteen cents his land- 
ladytold him and she always had cucumbers and good ones and plenty of them. 
The poor landlady glanced furtively around to see how this affected the 
other boarders and saw with dismay that one and all of them looked as if 
they couldn't eat another dinner without cucumbers. Poor woman, she 
couldn't afford to let them wear any expression of countenance they pleased, 
next day there were cucumbers sliced very thin and made to cover as much 
plate as possible, a state of affairs Don didn't fail to illustrate with various 
antics holding the pieces between him and the light with a fork, lifting at 
them with a spoon as if they couldn't be lifted at all (Don has been doing 
that lately with a different kind of wittles) nevertheless taking care to spoon 
the biggest share into himself. Don knew when he could do such things, 
he also knew when he could not do them. He discovered that unexpectedly 
once just after his first supper in a former boarding house whereat he had 
diverted his new messmates with similar feats of legerdemain. Immediately 
after in the sitting room an immense Irishman brought forward a pair of 
hobnailed brogans that were simply freightful and askod Don if he saw 
them. Don said he didn't know how he could help seeing anything ob- 
structing the view to that extent. "Well, they're mine," said the Irishman. 
' 'Well, I've no objections, ' ' said Don, ' 'I'm only too glad they ain't mine, does 



4 Bon Feittakee's Histoey. 

your feet fit them?" "Irately," said the Irishman, "and I'll tell ye young- 
ster if ye show any mair o' yer'e imprunce at my table ye'llsee ho'o they'll 
fit you. " From that day Don took particular care to inform himself whether 
his prospective landlord was Irish and wore brogans or not. When Don 
inquired respecting his present landlord a fellow boarder stated there was 
such a cove upstairs somewhere, never saw him, Avas all the time sick he 
believed. So the coast was clear and Don at his leisure could privateer at his 
own discretion and his own discretion urged him to exert to the utmost an 
almost unlimited capacity for annoying and harrassing any creature totally 
at his clemency, and henceforth no oversight, no blunder, no trifling omission 
escaped him. The poor landlady's confusion and mortification, even her often 
humble apologies never caused him to relent for one moment but rather 
intensified his satire and ridicule. The landlady had once or twice attempted 
to redress her grievances with fellows of this stamp by turning them out 
but the fellows who turned in were little better and went off in the end leaving 
a two weeks bill unsettled. At present so pressing was her need of every 
dollar she must, so long as Don paid up, tolerate his insolence, so your 
historian thinks that Don for the present is domiciled in a boardinghouse 
that suits him exactly; if it don't, your historian don't know what would suit 
him exactly. Whether it suits him or not it is the anly one the facts of 
Don's history have provided for him at this juncture which shows the great 
disadvantage a historian labors under when writing a history instead of a 
romance, for in the romance you invent all the facts and by so doing please 
everybody, whereas you must write a history with facts that are already 
invented and so badly invented, too, they will please nobody, but instead will 
make everybody very mad at yourself; for everybody thinks the stubbornness 
of them originates in your own pigheadedness and everybody abhors pig- 
hcadedness. Suited or not suited, one fact is certain, Don applied for and 
immediately received work in the clinker factory hard by ; wages, two dollars 
twenty -five cents per day. 

As a general rule the weather in the summer months outside of the 
clinker factories is rather warm; as a particular rule, inside of the clinker 
factories in the summer months, it's hot as the summer breath of the Sahara. 
Many devices have been tried before now for cooling the summer breath of 
the clinker factories, but never with much success. Don Frittaker said they 
were humbugs, every one of them, that one glass of lager beer or ale was 
worth the whole lot of them, was in fact the only cooling device was worth 
anything, and by taking the proper number of glasses, a fellow could regu- 
late his temperature to suit himself, and the clinker factory temperature too . 
So Don took many glasses, and being a whole souled fellow, always took 
one or more follows with him to the beer hall and refrigerated them at his 
own expense. There was nothing clieap about that. But although this 
kept his temperature natural through the weel^ while working in tlie factory. 
It wouldn't keep it normal on Sunday when he didn't work in tlie factory; 
in fact, a fellow in summer must go to the country to keep normal on Sunday : 



Don Fbittaiveb's Histoky. 5 

nothing like tlie country air.ii' you take it in a buggy and a pretty girl 
takes it in the buggy along with you. Don had known all this for a long- 
while, so having secured work and a boarding house, a pretty girl Vvas now 
in order, and Don kept his eyes round pretty sharp, but as every girl in our 
burg was prettier than another, and every one of them had strings enough 
to her bow already. Don ran a smart risk of smothering in his own tem- 
perature some Sunday, when fortunately a new girl moved into our burg at 
this critical juncture, and she being very pretty, and having left the old 
strings of her bow behind, possibly because they were not worth moving, 
and Don getting an introduction before any other body, Don was attached 
to her bow at once, and it was now in order for her to tune Don to her own 
particular key, and make all the sweet melodies she could out of so much 
dissonance. Don called as early as possible to get tuned up, and his new 
girl received him with great suavity, and placed the easiest of easy chairs 
in the pleasantest possible situation for him. When Don sat down in it, a 
black eyed little girl sat down too with an air of great hesitation on a chair 
close beside hhn, and with the most charming naivity, told him how such 
a nice gentleman had called a little while before, and made her a present of 
a quarter-dollar. Don produced his pocket book, and gave her a twenty- 
live cent script, the blackeyed little girl clasped her hands in an ecstacy of 
delight and exclaimed! Oh what a nice gentleman you are. Oh thank you, 
thank you, and slid down off the chair and disappeared, and his new girl 
(her name was Susan Frittaker, black-eyed Susan, Don always called her,) 
chatted merrily all the time, and apparently neither saw nor heard the black - 
eyed apparition, but descanted on the delights of the country, these delight- 
ful summer days, especially a Sunday drive. Don chimed in, he felt on this 
particular subject, all that any body, even Susan, could feel such a drive was 
the one indispensable necessity of a clinker factory fellow's life, in sum- 
mer his temporal well-being depended upon it wholly, solely, and as Sue 
saw the matter in exactly the same light, he at once proposed that she should 
sliare the benefits and advantages of a drive the following Sunday, which 
was to be sure, but a meet and fitting reward of so much good sense and 
sound judgment. Sue graciously accepted the graceful tribute to her merit, 
and told him of a charming hotel that a number of the elite patronized, 
how super excellent the dinners and suppers were, and how fortunate it was 
the strawberry season was just coming in. Don's delight was unbountj^d; 
was it any wonder, fresh fields and pastures new, beautiful girl and straw- 
berries, too. On Sunday Don was promptly on hand with the most stylish 
rig he had been able to procure. Susan went to get her hat and Don sat 
down in the easy chair, and instantly the black-eyed little girl fluttered to his 
side and sat down, too, and forthwith told him what a comfort and delight 
that twenty-five cents had been to her, and that if it had only been fifty 
cents, she could not have spent it all whereat Don laughed as if it was the 
best joke in the world, produced his pocket-book and a fifty cent greenback, 
answering her that a quarter would 'nt buy much these hard times, he knew 



6 Don Frittakek's History. 

himself. The black eyed little girl eagerly grasped the money, repeated 
the former pantomine and disdTppeared, her father, mother and three 
brothers seemingly wholly oblivious of her entrance, actions or disappear- 
ance. Sue now entered in a new summer suit so fashionable, rich and sty- 
lish, and looked so charming that Don pronounced her the loveliest girl he 
had ever seen. If there was any cheap thing in life Don detested more 
than another, it was a homely, ill dressed girl. The one chief aim of Don's 
life was to shine upon such occasions as Sunday drives, picnics, and balls. 
To shine on such occasions with an ugly, unfashionably dressed girl was out 
of the question, you couldn't attract attention, you caused no envy. There 
was no sensation when you came in, no flutter when you went out ; in 
short, it made a fellow cheap, cheap. Don never patronized homely girls, 
would as soon have toted out his grandmother or any old maid, or any of 
Barnum's stock. 

If Sue was lovely in Don's eyes, she was more than lovely in her own, 
and didn't conceal the fact, but rather made free display of her conviction. 
The circle she moved in took girls at their own valuation, therefore self- 
assertion in her case was meritorious, and as it consisted mostly in bad gram- 
mer, and disdainful airs and vulgar slang, it didn't cost much, and could 
be used freely, and Sue used it freely, and received consequently the hearty 
admiration of the beaux, and the equally hearty detestation of the belles, 
and it would be hard to say which she prized most highly. 

When a fellow has a divinity like this by his side it's impertively nes- 
cessary that he should make the dust fly. A horse hired for four dollars 
won't make the dust fly, unless you make the whip fly pretty lively. So 
Don made the whip and the dust both fly. 

They hadn't been long on the road, when a two-forty nag, a fast 
young sport and equally fast girl overtook and passed them despite of Don 
plying the whip to the utmost. Drive, drive urged Sue, and Don drove, 
drove till the dripping back of the four-dollar horse grew foamy under the 
harness. "The infernal old hack, " said Don, "I'll kill him if he don't keep 
up, ' ' and the miserable hack seemed to know the danger, and exerted sinew, 
nerve and muscle to the utmost, but in vain, and to the intense mortifica- 
tion of Don and Sue he fell behind, and the young sport and his gay com- 
panion turned. The sport bowed with a derisive ha, ha, ha! and the fem- 
enine loveliness kissed her hand and waived back the kiss with an equally 
derisive he, he, he. Could mockery go farther? Don was frantic and Sue 
was.' frantic and the wretched hack. Well, oh, well, "The mills of God 
grind very slow, but grind exceeding sure. ' ' 

"Curse the devilish brute," said Don, "for a cent I'd tie him up and 
lash him to death." "Would serve him right," said his gentle companion, 
whose fine new suit was turning gray as ashes with dust. Don kept the 
reeking hack to his utmost speed, which, if not the two-forty quantum, 
brought them to Sue's much-lauded hotel. There were many such turnouts 
there; many more arrived afterwards, and Don and Sue being surrounded by 



Don Fkittakeb's History. 7 

birds of their own feather may be considered in tlieir own proper element. 
Cash and clothing included the two represented probably one hundred dollars, 
but they confidently believed themselves to be passing off for representatives 
of one hundred thousand dollars and that nuide them both feel as if they 
really did represent that amount. This was immense to some people. "A 
bird in hand is worth two in a bush" to the Frittakers, to whose lingers 
nothing will stick. The birds in the bushes are all birds of paradise and the 
birds in hand peewees and ground chippys, common and easily caught. They 
have no value in Frittaker eyes, but are contemptible objects of Frittaker 
scorn. 

Neither one of this delectable pair held any or all of the advantages 
their lives afforded at all comparable with the two or three brief hours of 
false pretence of that one afternoon. What a pity its golden hours must 
come to an end ! Sweeping of skirts, tossing of heads, contemptuous sniffs 
and slang phrases, to use a common and expressive one*on that occasion, all 
"dickered out" after supper and strawberries and cream in the dining-room, 
and bottles, glasses and llavanas in the bar-room. Sue declared it didn't 
seem like an hour and Don thought it couldn't have been one. And the 
poor hack — well, no matter what he thought. Don managed to hack him 
home at a lively rate, where he positively refused to eat oats for two days, 
no doubt because of his signal failure to palm himself off for the two-forty 
nag he wasn't, literally was nearly mortified to death. "There's a poi- 
sonous drop in the purest cup." If not wholly and solely arsenical, it's 
wormwoody and gaily to that degree you don't oare a button which of the 
three it is. It's enough of either or all of them to embitter one's whole 
' 'compos mentis' ' for the time being. Don felt this intensely on Monday morn- 
ing. The recollection of Sue's superb airs, the stunning way she queened it 
among the aristocrats leaving no doubt on their minds that she and Don were 
creme de la creme, the unexceptional supper, the strawberries and cream of 
the dining-room, the smashes, juleps and Ilavanasof the bar-room, all seemed 
no recompense, after all, for the derisive ha, ha, of the young sport and 
the mocking he, he, and kiss of his companion. Don was sure they cheap- 
ened himself and Sue miserably, and his mind reverted at once to the miser- 
able hack as the sole cause and wished he only had him where he could take 
satisfaction out of his hide and also the scoundrel who would palm such a brute 
on a fellow and charge him four dollars, he'd rub him down in a way would 
do him good. These reflections filled him with fiery indignation and the 
fiery indignation made him thirsty, so he took another fellow and went to 
the beer hall and drank beer until his fiery indignation cooled, when Don 
discovered he had forgotten his pocket-book. Don told the beer man to 
tick that and it being dinner time he hurried home to get his dinner. After 
dinner Don looked for his pocket-book and found it under his pillow where 
he left it. Don thought it sound policy to hold every one for a thief until 
})roven honest, so he proceeded to count his money — one two dollar green- 
back. Don held it in every position and viewed it in every light and then 



8 Don Fkittakek's Histoky. 

started to demolish the landlady. He would raze the house to the ground. 
He'd show her such barefaced robbery wouldn't do. But out in the hall he 
remembered that he had undertaken a similar feat once before and got razed 
himself and got into the lockup besid.es, where, having ample time to count 
his expenditures as well as his money, was soon convinced that nobody had 
stolen his money, he not having any left to steal; and now he also remembered 
that upon that occasion he would have had to go to jail but that his insulted 
landlady paid his fine, so Don reconsidered his proposed action and fell to 
counting up costs since Saturday night, which was pay night. Boarding, 
fourteen dollars; tick at the beer hall, one dollar seventy cents; the cursed 
old hack, four dollars; toll, seventy-five cents; supper, one dollar and fifty 
cents; strawberries and cream, fifty cents; smashes, juleps, cigars for him- 
self and five other fellows, two dollars; black-eyed little girl, fifty 
cents. 'Tis the last feather breaks the camel's back. This last item nearly 
threw Don into a fit. What kind of a little girl was that ? A little girl 
like that should be rawhided if she evpr again presented herself to him. He 
would never set foot in that door again. Then Don counted up twenty-five 
dollars from twenty- seven leaves, two. Whew! and two weeks to pay night. 
Would time and space permit a detailed account of Don's financiering from 
this time forth would edify and instruct the most skillful and expert in the 
cash department of our "Grind well governing machine." The masterly 
lying that tided him out of one straight into and through each succeeding 
one, not only feeding and clothing himself with the best, but entertaining 
himself and Sue with drives, picnics, excursions, making the summer for 
them both one continuous holiday and golden harvest of the fruits of other 
people's toil, was lying that out-heroded all belief, in fact dimmed the halo 
around that character in Hudibras who was ' ' for profound and solid lying- 
much renowned," with lying, in short, he paid everything his wages 
couldn't pay and Don's wages couldn't pay one-half of Don's expenditures. 
The summer wound up with one of the grandest picnics Don and Sue had 
ever known, and that picnic, for reasons your veritable historian will now 
set forth, may be said to be the end of Don's palmy days in our burg. 

'Tis a curious fact with regard to the appliances and materials used in 
clinker factories that they all have a strong tendency to bust; even cold 
water, a bucketful of which outside of a clinker factor/ is usually a very 
harmless agency, inside of one is fearfully destructive unless carefully han- 
dled. The day following the great picnic Don's head was full of that jolli- 
fication. How could he remember the busting propensities and tendencies 
of things around him ? So he gave a bucketful of water a sudden emptying 
over a mass of molten clinker that busted both water and clinker. The 
busting scattered it and melted clinker over everybody round, Don excepted, 
(a fool for luck), but that the blisters of all sizes that operated like the stings 
of so many hornets gave the recipients of this "fire shower of ruin" enough 
to do, Don would have. had a picnic on hand; would have waltzed him 
round to the same tune that a picnic that day a year ahead of him eventually 



Don Fkittakbk's History. 9 

did. As it was tliere was a grand rumpus. The workmen raged, the 
bosses stormed, most of all the manager (the great ' 'I arn' ' Don called him, 
swearing that he had his eyes on everything and his nose in everything other 
people said, that was a manager's business), as if to verify Don's opinion he 
was instantly (m hand and expressed himself so emphatically, though not 
usually demonstrative, that Don knew but for the great pressure of work 
and the great scarcity of hands he (Don) would have lit on his head 
outside the high enclosure. This "jen de esprit" soured the whole establish- 
ment, especially the blistered portion of it, who always looked black at Don 
and hinted broadly at the expediency of hanging a few of the idiots who 
jeopardize other men's lives with their reckless folly, going themselves scott 
free of suffering, expense and loss. This was very sour for Don, indeed, 
so much so that all the balls, oyster suppers, fairs and revivals hardly made 
amends to Don; in fact, but for Sue 'twould have been insupportable. But 
suddenly the tension relaxed, another idiot busted another bucket of water 
and with worse effect, and Don's escapade was forgotten. And this brought 
the spring and the spring brought the summer and the summer brings pic- 
nics. So there was one on the tapis pretty soon. Don, by this time in the 
matter of tick, was nearly swamped. Creditors' scurvy dogs dogged him 
everywhere. How to keep enough money out of their clutches to meet the 
requirements of the picnic was taxing Don's brains to the utmost. Since 
the calamitous busting of the bucket of water, Don had kept a wary eye on 
all tools and materials entrusted to his care. The ominous look of the great 
"I am" on that occasion had made an impression for once on his mental 
caoutchouc. But his present financial dilemma was enough to obliterate 
even the existence of the great "I am" in both mind and memory. Lost 
in abstruse study of the dilemma's manifold horns, a bran-new shovel 
dropped at Don's heels to lie while he tried to steady his bewildered wits 
with a glass of beer. But it didn't lie. An ever- watchful, sticky-fingered 
Frittaker passed that way and the bran-new shovel clave to him. An angry . 
altercation between Don and his boss followed. The ubiquitous "lam" 
was immediately on hand with a face more ominous than ever. He listened 
and went away. Saturday was pay night. When Don, in his turn, stood 
at the window, the cashier, cash in hand, quietly said, "Shovels cost a dol- 
lar and half now, Mr. Frittaker. ' ' Don felt as if a valcano was lifting hhu 
off his feet, but remembering the ominous face of the giH3at "lam," he 
replied in a tone of cheerful acquiescence that he knew it. The cashier 
counted out his wages less the price of one shovel and followed up the cash 
with a brief statement that henceforth the clinker factory would evolute and 
re volute without Mr. Frittaker' s assistance. If Don a minute before felt as 
if a volcano was lifting him, he now felt as if two volcanoes were lifting him 
and an earthquake beneath them were urging them to lift. A torrent of 
abusive billingsgate rushed to his teeth, but somehow circumstances always 
"cabin crib confine" geniuses of Don's peculiar stamp. A recollection of a 
former experience rushed with his wrath. On that occasion he had been so 



10 Don Fkittaker's History . 

indiscreet as to storm the citadel and wlien, having stormed himself out of 
breath, he raised the siege he found the tick people bills ready in hand 
ticking all round him, the news of his dismissal having spread like wildfire. 
The consequence was they ticked all Don's money out of his hands and when 
they found it wouldn't go round they threatened to tick his clothes off his 
back, the hair off his head, the head off" his body, and were so manifestly in 
earnest that Don resolved 'twas the last fandango of that kind should be 
danced around him. For besides the fright it had cheapened him dismally. 
His most intimate chums had been lookers-on and had not been slow but 
rather fast to derisively invite him to go in to walk through the tick people 
and immediately with surprising impartiality invited and urged the tick peo- 
ple to walk into and go through himself, and when he did escape the con 
tumely of friend and foe, being penniless, was further humiliated by a two- 
weeks' sojourn in a five-dollar boarding house than which at that time Don 
knew nothing more thoroughly humbling. So he now clinched his teeth 
over the lingual lava scorching his tongue, clenched his fist and shook it as 
near the cashier's nose as he could get it and at his liveliest gait took the 
directest route to his boarding house and for good or rather bad reasons for 
the first time entered its rear door. As he entered the voice of Dutch Jake, 
who was the butt of the Frittaker boarders, resounded through the house. 
"Yesli, yesh," said Jake, "I bays mine vays. I no sheats nopody. " An 
assertion the landlady in the cheerfulest tone Don had yet heard from her 
confirmed and applauded. Don applauded, too. "Yes,'' he muttered, 
' 'you cursed idiot. ' ' And hurrying to his room hastily bundled up his little 
all and escaped like a thief in the night the way he entered and without 
feeling at all cheapened by doing so. 

Of the many miseries the poor landlady had to contend with, pay night 
was the one she dreaded most. Frittakers make one-fourth of the popula- 
tion around a clinker factory, so the landlady invariably had a number of 
them in her ffock, and when they didn't, like Don, sneak off' altogether, they 
invariably endeavored, with excuses more or less paltry or plausible, to 
escape paying at least a part of their indebtedness. The minute Jake was 
gone she thought of them and paid a flying visit to their rooms to see who, 
if any, of them were home, for when they didn't sneak off altogether, if they 
but escaped her vigilance for but a few hours 'twas almost impossible to col- 
lect any part due her before next pay night and the probability was that 
half and perhaps the whole could never be collected. She came last to 
Don's room. The door stood open, so did the closet door. The closet will 
tell she thought, and it did tell that that hopeful cormorant had packed his 
traps and spread his wings and soared or sailed, 't wasn't a particle of differ- 
ence which, where it would never pay her to follow, so impenetrable is the 
network of jurisprudence devised to protect and foster knavery in our free 
and happy land. The poor woman, at this discovery, looked aghast, then turned 
and went slowly down stairs repeating drearily enough, "Well, well, well." 
At the foot of the stairs she turned, hesitated and sighed and called, "Mary, 



Don Fkittakeb's Histoky. 11 

Mary." "Yes, ina, " said a childish voice, and Mary, ready dressed to go 
out, stood at the head of the stairs. Her mother beckoned, without speak- 
ing, and Mary came down. Of late it seemed to the landlady that the poor 
invalid upstairs could hear every word louder than a whisper spoken in that 
house, so she whispered, "Mary, dear, I can't let you get your gaiters 
to-night." A shade of disappointment stole over Mary's childish face, but 
instantly disappeared and her childish face reflected all the care and anxiety 
her mother's expressed, when she asked in a tone of alarm: "What has 
happened, ma?" "Nothing unusual, dear," said her mother, soothingly, 
' 'that worthless Don Frittaker has gone without paying me and you know the 
grocer must be paid to-night and our rent will soon be due." "Yes, ma, 
I know, ' ' said the child, in a tone that at once expressed relief that matters 
were no worse and commiseration for her poor mother, for whom they were 
undoubtedly bad enough and would have been made worse by murmuring on 
her part. ' 'There, ' ' continued her mother, ' 'is a dollar. Eun for your 
father's medicine. Don't stay a minute, Mary, dear, you -must see to the 
supper. I mustn't lose sight of these fellows one minute." And Mary 
hurried away and her mother's tears started as she thotrght, "Poor child, 
poor child, never has an hour to play like any other child; nothing but 
drudgery, care and anxiety. ' ' Two Frittakers entered and her usual strug- 
gle with meanness and dishonesty began and taxed her ingenuity and tact 
to the uttermost. Fifteen boarders who were not Frittakers gave no trouble, 
payed promptly, spoke kindly and went their way; but these talked inter 
minable lies and larded them with oaths. To these she must plead poverty, 
must appeal to honesty and honor, where she knew too well there was none ; 
must plead her trying circumstances, her invalid husband, her children, high 
rent, high markets, high fuel, anything, everything that would touch feeling or 
touch shame, and all to get money that was justly due her, and all this to night 
almost failed; would have failed but that the outside pressure made her 
more determinedly persistent than ever before; and seeing this, they finally 
with great reluctance and evident indignation, paid the last dollar at last. 

So trying was this ordeal that she utterly forgot poor Johnny. He 
was now her first thought, and one that brought mortal terror. He may be 
sick unto death, may be dying, may be dead. Frantic at the thought, she 
sped like an arrow up the stairs and into his room. By the window, in 
the still moonlight, Johnny sat in his chair bolt upright, so rigid, so death 
like, her heart stood still and she herself stood as still as her heart. The 
spectre in the chair drew a long breath, and she s[)rang to his side. Johnny 
was fast asleep. Oh, the unexpressible relief . Totally overcome, she sank, 
rather than crouched, down, on the floor close to his feet, and while he 
peacefully slept — like Kingsley's poacher's widow- — "wept till her heart 
grew light". 

When Don, poised an cormorant wings, took his flight from the land- 
lady's, he directed his course straight to a half-way house he knew of over 
the river, where he washed, dressed and left his bundle, that he might not 



12 Don Fkittakek's Histoky. 

cheapen himself carrying it withal. Once on the street again, the lingual 
lava began anew to scorch his tongue, and his fury at the the great "I am" 
anew began to boil over, and whether threats of vengeance or impreca- 
tions had the upper hand in his mental retrospection of that gentleman's 
merits, t' would be hard to say. Don vowed, and probably 'twas true, that 
of all the "I am's" he had ever known he had always detested this one in 
particular, and went on to enumerate various good reasons, among which 
there wasn't one of these that follow. First, the "I am" had started in 
life a journeyman clinker-maker, and by his own unaided efforts had risen 
to his present position of manager and jjartner. This was cheapness Don's 
whole soul revolted at. It meant saving money ; it meant steady hard work 
day after day, year after year; it meant rigid economy; it meant getting 
everything you had honestly — no unpaid tick about it. All this was most 
disgusting to Don, and for the very cheapness of it he hated it. Indeed, as 
Don said to himself with a fearful imprecation, hate was just no name for 
what he felt. 

When his menial tumult subsided he looked around to see wnere he 
was. At first that was more than he could divine, but the closed door of a 
clinker factory stood just in front of him, and he presently recognized it as an 
old acquaintance, and also the fact that he was about three miles from where 
he started. Jin g said, "Don, this is just as good a place as I could have 
found if I had been looking for one." To be sure, it was a fellow in those 
days could get work anywhere. All Don needed for the present was a 
boarding-house commensurate with his manifold merits. He soon found one. 
It looked for all the world like the one he had left, except the addition of 
lace curtains in the parlor windows, and that, in Don' sopinicm, was the right kind 
of an addition; would be that much added to the halo of importance surround- 
ing himself. Don rang the bell, and when seated in the .dining room,- stated 
his errand. This brought the landlady, and Don proceeded to inquire 
about all the comforts, conveniences and advantages her house afforded. 
But she pinned Don suddenly back by stating that her terms were 
seven dollars a week in advance, and that he who couldn't pay in advance 
(and there was sharpness in her voice) couldn't board with her. 
Don's first impulse was to rise and depart, shake the dirt of such presump- 
tion promptly from his feet.; but then she would have believed that Don was 
a fellow without a cent. He would let her know better, and produced 
his pocket book and paid fourteen dollars. This operated like magic. The 
lady became graciousness itself and conducted Don to the parlor with the lace 
curtains, until his supper and room could be prepared for him. In the par- 
lor with the lace curtains sat a pretty young lady, the landlady's daughter. 
Don was duly introduced, and they chatted together, and Don was very 
soon convinced that this was a real, true boarding school young lady, quite 
different altogether from young ladies who a-re not boarding school young 
ladies; and it struck Don as singular that a fact so striking hadn't struck him 
before but that probably arose naturally out of the circumstance that he had 



Don Frittaker's History, 13 

only heard of boarding-school young ladies before, and had seen them merely 
to the extent of passing them by, which didn't of course, afford the facili- 
ties for observation that a stylish parlor with lace curtains did, especially 
when it contained one of the aforesaid young ladies and himself. 

Bye and bye Don was called to supper, and his room not being ready, 
was again remanded to the parlor. B}^ this time, Don had made up his 
mind to marry the boarding-school young lady and settle down in life. He 
had had thoughts of doing so before, but somehow, all the other young 
ladies he had known, black-eyed Susan included, didn't exactly suit him, 
undoubtedly because they were not boarding-school young ladies. Don 
recognized the fact now, that it presented itself to him, and fell to consider- 
ing how he best could convince the boarding-school young lady that he had 
graduated from the most of the leading cc^lleges round about. While 
endeavoring to fix this point and keep conversation afloat, a caller was 
announced. The boarding-school young lady blushed furiously, and 
introduced Mr. Sales. Mr. Sales' hair was parted in the middle to that 
degree that the parting disappeared under his shirt colar and down the 
middle of his back. His hair was intensely black and crisp, his moustache 
and teeth were unexceptionable, so was his entire make-up, he being the 
glass of fashion. Don felt at once that, regarding the matter of gradu- 
ation, he needn't give himself any further trouble, that this was a dry 
goods young man, and that his own cake was dough ; and the two volcanos 
and the earthquake threatened to lift him again, and also urged him to lift 
the dry goods young man. Happily at this juncture a servant announced 
that his room was now" ready, and he retired Avithout the formality of bid- 
ding })is new acquaintances good-evening. When a new day dawned on Don 
(and it was Sunday, too, and of all other days, the one to throw new light), 
new light dawned upon him regarding boarding-school young ladies. He 
had always heard they were hum-bugs, and last night's experience con- 
firmed that report certainly. His mind was soon made-up, they should 
never hum-bug him. But a new girl and a pretty girl he must have, of 
course. A drive, a ball, a picnic was dullness itself, without a girl, so 
Don betook himself to church ; knowing full well, that, in every sense, that 
was the best place to find one. Like gravitates to like. She came into the 
pew and sat down beside him. Another Susan Frittaker with this sligth 
distinctive difference : her eyes were blue, she was very pretty, her dress 
had the very latest extreme touches of fashion on and about it. Yet, not 
withstanding, Don took the wise precaution of convincing himself, by 
observation, that there was none other there that excelled her, before he 
gave himself away. Which, when he sat about it, he did with zeal and 
fervor, and he soon saw indications that Sue number two would probably accept 
the gift. He managed in a few days to procure an introduction, and Don 
was fairly settled for awhile at least, and the old routme of picnics, 
excursions, and tick began anew, and went on swimmingly, until near the 
close of summer. While Don was thus roping himself, and Sue number 



14 Don Feittaker's History. 

two in that Sunday evening, Sue number one was wondering what in the world 
had become of him, not having heard of his dismissal, and the black-eyed 
little girl, fermented with impatience, and finding that didn't produce Dan, 
tell to fermenting the rest of the family, by a pertinacious effort to send 
them in all directions to look for Don ; and persisted until each in turn had 
boxed her ears. Sue boxing them twice to make sure she hadn't omitted to 
box them once. This convinced the black- eyed little girl that her ears 
would do for to-night, so she went to bed, the others soon following : Sue 
beginning to wonder if it could be possil>le Don was looking for another 
girl to take to the picnic and mentally vowing vengeance, if such should 
be so. 

Next morning, while Sue was tidying the parlor, a gossipy Frittaker 
passing with a bucket of water, looked in, and seeing Sue, set her bucket 
down, fixed a scrutinizing gaze on Sue's face and asked, "What was Don 
Frittaker dismissed for?" Whatever Sue's feelings might be, she wasn't 
the girl to show them indiscreetly, so she said w^th a nonchalant air that 
looked as if she might feel interested, that she wondered why Don w^asn't 
round yesterday. The gossipy Frittaker had calculated on something else 
than this, for it nonplussed, wholly disconcerted her. She dropped the 
subject, lifted the bucket and said she must hurry home, and Sue shut the 
door. When she turned round the black-eyed little girl stood like a statue 
just behind her. The black-eyed little girl's mouth and eyes had a fixed 
expression as if they had suddenly petrified, and now she as suddenly 
doubled from her waist down, "whoo whoo oo-oo-oo!" she roared. This 
w^as so unexpected it took Sue's breath away, and set her mother, who was 
sewing at the window, bolt upright in her chair. Whaa-w^haa wa-wa wa 
haa'd" the little girl. 

"What on earth do you mean?" exclaimed Sue, recovering her breath. 
" Wou, wou, oo, oo, oo!" howled the little girl, again doubling up. 
"What do you mean?" screamed Sue, seizing the plait of hair that hung 
down the little girl's back with one hand, and the fire shovel with the other. 
"Yow-yow-yow-yow-yow-yow!" yowed the little girl, but she didn't 
double up this time. Sue held the plait too tight. Sue plied the shovel 
round the little girl's shoulders, asking with every flap what she meant. 
Their mother, joining in, tried to grasp the shovel with one hand and the 
little girl's arm with the other, and getting hold of it shook furiously. 
"Whaa-mu-r-r-r-der-mur-r-r-der!" shrieked the little girl. "Hush, hush," 
cried Sue and her mother both in a breath. "Shut up, shut up in one min- 
ute; shut up; what's the matter with you? I'll send to the mill for your 
father," said their mother. "My, my, my!" sobbed the little girl, "that 
st-stinkin' Don Frittaker's gone n-n-n I ain't go-got but ni-nine dollars that 
wo- won't buy me n-no-silk dress so it wo-won't" "You a silk dress!" 
exclaimed Sue. "I'd talk about it. I must have five dollars of that money 
to help buy my lace sacque. I haven't enough." "Whoo-whoo ow- 
rau-r-r-der!" roared the little girl, and now she assumed the offensive and 



Don Fkittaker's History. 15 

attacked Sue with her teeth and nails. "Ye shan't, ye shanH!" she 
shrieked, and their mother stamped on , the floor, shook the little girl, and 
Sue again pulled the plait and flapped her shoulders with the shovel. 

But here the echo of voices and heavy feet came in from the side alley, 
the tumult instantly ceased. "Oh!" said Sue, in a terrified whisper, "there's 
pap a,nd Bob and there ain't a drop of coffee!" Oh, then there was 
marshalling in hot haste; all three made a rush for the back stair, but their 
mother had the fore way and escaped, leaving poor Sue to face the music, 
which she did by seizing the coffee mill, and the way that coffee mill went 
round was a caution to all the coffee mills ever was made, and the way pap 
and Bob swore when they discovered the situation beat all the swearing you 
ever heard; it made poor Sue's black eyes look blue, and she was used to it. 
Pap and Bob both looked as if they meditated a rush for her black hair, but 
;it that moment pap's eyes fell on the tearful face of the black-eyed little 
girl. "What ails you," he thundered, and instantly his heavy hand on the 
side of her head made her reel and shriek and fly up stairs. "Here, you," 
shouted the savage creature, ' 'stop there. ' ' The little girl, half way up, 
stopped instantly. "Now, shut right up, " thundered the brute, and she 
did, there wasn't another word. 

By this time Sue had jingled the necessary dishes, bread, butter, meat 
and coffee, on the table. Pap and Bob each snatched a chair and set it down 
with a twist as if it had been a wrench, and fell to pouring boiling coffee 
down their throats mumbling, with their mouths stu.ffed full, that it wasn't 
fit to drink. Sue produced a jelly cake that had been kept over for Don 
Frittaker, and the two semi-savages dropped the bread and butter they 
were devouring and fell voraciously upon it, their tempers and tones 
mellowing at once. Sue followed it up with a pie and the mumbling growl 
died away like the mutterings of distant thunder after a summer storm. 
When they had eaten and drank everything on the table they left, and when 
the sound of their feet told they were out of hearing Sue said solemnly, 
"Well, you're a pair of hogs, that's what you are," And now, having 
time to spare, she proceeded to pay her compliments to Don Frittaker. 
' 'Well, I do declare, ' ' she said, ' 'that nasty, dirty, stinking Don Fritta- 
Iver's gone, and the picnic comes off Thursday, only to think, I sacked Joe 
for that slink, and now Joe's married," And Joe being married, led to 
other reflections of the same general tenor. 

In the afternoon she made calls, one of them at Vivian Frittaker 's board- 
ing house. Vivian was at home. The picnic was the absorbing topic, of 
course, and among other arrangements made for it, Vivian arranged to 
escort Sue, and calling in the following evening to talk the matter over, the 
little black-eyed girl sat down beside him and told him how Don had always 
given her a quarter when he came; so Vivian gave her one, too, and the 
black-eyed little girl went into the usual ecstacy of gratitude and delight, 
and slid off her chair and departed, saying to herself, "Ah, ha, Lizzy 
Frittaker, see if I don't have a silk dress and a better one than yours !" and 



Don Fkittaker's Histokt, 16 

Sue pronounced Vivian a far nicer fellow than Don — so genteel — and from 
that day to this nobody in that houee, not even the black-eyed little girl, 
ever thought of Don Frittaker again, and truth to tell, Don Frittaker thought 
just as little about them, although the only perceptible difference between 
his new Susan and his old one was in the color of their eyes. Don was 
delighted Avith it, and being happily clear of all the old tick and in a locality 
that offered fair opportunity for accumulating new tick, he turned his wages 
to the very best account in the matter of amusement for the delectation of 
his new Susan and himself, and accomplished this so well that he hardly 
knew where lie was till the summer was over; in fact, was being closed by 
one last grand picnic, and Don and his blue-eyed Susan were closing it 
splendidly in a cotillion set, balance all-hands round. "Don, Don," said 
a fellow standing behind Don when Don and his partner came to a standstill 
after promenade all. " What is this Jay Cooke business anyhow I" "Jay 
Cooke, Jay Cooke," said Don. "Hanged if I know; what was he, what did he 
do?" "Oh, " said another fellow, "busted up, that's all." "Oh, Oh!" 
said Don, "kind of cooked Jay !" "He ! he ! he !" tittered Susan. 
"Well, did I ever ! ha ! ha ! ha I" Encouraged by this, Don grew witty, 
and asked if he was a blue Jay, or if anybody had ever heard of a black 
Jay, and threw Sue into convulsions of laughter, that was suddenly 
terminated by her brother and three other fellows who had danced and 
drank themselves into a very inflammatory state of mind, and now, in con- 
sequence, wound up the set they were dancing by setting their teeth, and 
setting to work with their eight clenched fists to demolish one another. And 
one being Susan's brother, Don fell to expostulating, hoping to make peace, 
but the moment Don turned in as a peace-maker the entire quartette turned 
in to make pieces of Don and would assuredly have made a thousand pieces 
of him in an incredibly short time had not every fellow that could get a hand 
in stuck that hand in up to his elbow and grasped wherever he could take 
hold. They who caught the quartette thrapples, choking with all their 
might and they who caught the quartette's hair or heels, pulling with all 
their might, finall}^ dragging them off. 

Don dropped out of their clutches helpless, senseless as a sack of oats 
(wild oats probably), falling on his face. A half dozen fellows laid hold of 
him and turned him over; one whistled a prolonged "Whew!" one laconi 
cally remarked that ' 'that was a settler, ' ' to which all the lookers-on 
assented. Don neither assented nor dissented; was mute as a mouse. If 
he had had ever so much to say he had no mouth to say it with, that organ 
and every other feature of his face having disappeared, leaving a puffy mass 
that strikingly resembled a conglomerate of sausage meat and cinders. 
"Oh, good heaven!" said blue-oyed Susan to Ad. Frittaker, "isn't that 
awful! he's killed ain't he?" "Most like," said Ad., "if he ain't he ought 
to be, the darned fool." "Come, there's the band; hurry, hurry, we'll 
miss this set. " "Oh," said Sue, "Indeed I — " "Hurry, hurry, " said Ad, 
seizing her arm, and Sue hurried, and, having her reputation of being a 



Don Frittakee's History. 1Y 

first-class dancer to sustain, bad no time to think of Don again until the 
picnic was over, and when the }3icnic was over nobody knew where Don was 
taken to, and everybody said he would die anhyow, so there was no use 
tbinking- about him. And Sue never tliought any more about him. 

Meanwhile the four piece-rnaking worthies were dragged to a quiet nook 
where a thorough examination, to ascertain what damage the}^ had received 
and what the quarrel was about, lasted so long they all four were so drunk 
as to be incapable of doing further mischief that day. So one that was able 
to sit up was propped against the trunk of a tree, and the three who Avere 
unable to sit up were carefully laid backwards across a dry, sunny log, so 
they, wouldn't smother for one thing, and so they would be safe where they 
could be found again, for another. To this log Don was carried until some- 
thing or other, nobody knew what, could be done for him. One suggested 
that he should be taken home, so another was dispatched to ascertain where 
Don lived, but he fell to dancing and forgot about it. Another was dis- 
patched to see what fellow number one was dcTing, but he fell to drinking 
and forgot about it, and presently they were all gone wherever their lialf- 
tlrunken fancies led them. All but the driver of a wagon that brought 
forage to the picnic, who finding no one left but himself to do anj'thing set 
about doing something in good earnest. With the greatest difficulty he suc- 
ceeded in getting three or four half -drunken loons to assist him put the 
speechless, senseless, helpless Don into the wagon, which done, not all the 
blustering he could bring to bear on anybody and everybody could pro- 
duce tlie information where Don should be taken to. Finally being left 
all to himself and being a sticky fingered Frittaker and in close prox- 
imity to the dry, sunny log, it struck him very forcibly that the pockets 
of the three safe ones across the log would probabl}'^ throw light on the 
subject, he lost not a minute in going through them, and the collective 
pojkets of the safe ones threw light to the amount of about three dol- 
lars in fractional currency, which enabled him to see his way so clearly 
that he transferred the currency to his own pocket, transferred himself 
to the seat of his wagon and put spurs to his steed with the lash of 
his whip and rattled off with Don at such a lively gait that Don '^ 
teeth, that had all been in his jaws in the morning but were now all 
in the pit of his stomach, danced quite as lively as Sue at that minute 
was dancing with Ad Frittaker. Guided by the light of the fractional 
currency, the driver found Don's landlady's door as if bv instinct. The 
door stood open, and the driver took Don by the collar and shouldered 
liini like the beforementioned sack of oats, toted him into the hall, 
where he dumped him in a grey sodden heap on the floor, kicked the 
door until the house shook, sprang into his wagon and turned the ver}^ 
first corner he came to. 

The alarm brought the landlady up from the basement, who, when 
her eyes fell upon the grey heap, eyed it a little and said, "Oh, whiskey, 
whiskey." Then after a pause, added, "Which of them is it I wonder," 



18 Bon Fkittaker's Histoet. 

and going round the grey heap to see, recognized Don's new suit and said, 
"Why, it's Don, and Oh, goodness, his face is one complete smash!" She 
listened a minute to his heavy breathing. "Aye, aje, the game's up with 
you," she added, and turning hastily, ran upstairs to Don's room, and to the 
closet of it which she opened, and at once proceeded to take an inventory 
of its contents, which resulted in one pair of dirty pants, with strong indi- 
cation of open-rupture at the knees before very long, one awful dirty and 
very thin flannel shirt, one dirty muslin shirt that was of no account, one 
clean muslin shirt gone all to the bad, another clean shirt going all to the 
bad as fast as it could, one dickey all fringy 'round the collar and breast, 
another dickey that was simpl}^ a, -breastwork of strings, one pocket handker- 
chief full of holes, another that wasn't full of holes (this was a lady's and 
had her initials in one corner, and the landlady, being a sticky -fingered 
Frittaker, jumped at the conclusion that Don's fingers had stuck to some- 
thing at last, and as it Avasn't his, stuck it into her own pocket), an old 
pair of socks without toes or heels, another pair that were legs only, a 
worn-out tooth brush, a coarse comb Avith five teeth, a, fine comb without 
any teeth, three cigar stumps; a bit of tobacco, two pieces of a cork screw, 
one Jew's harp and two cards, the last of a pack, one the ace of spades, the 
other the king of trumps. The ace of spades might have been the ace of shovels 
for anything the landlady knew or cared, but the king of trumps she lifted 
and vieAved though tfull}^, and said softly, "Oh, Don, my boy, you were the 
king of tramps yourself . " Little she dreamed that Don might eventually 
prove the king of tramps, for at that minute she believed the last trump 
to be trumping loud as it could toot in Don's ears in the hall beloAv. 

And full of this belief, she lifted a castor oil bottle that towered, head 
and shoulders, above half a dozen empty cologne and bear's oil bottles, turned 
it sideAvays,eyed the spoonful or so of oil it contained, and said, "Yes, yes, 
and you've got your last j^hysic, Don," and with that she took out all the 
articles of clothing, the handkerchief full of holes included, glanced at a heap 
of valentines, photographs and loA^e letters that Avould have filled a . peck, 
slipped her disengaged hand under and up through them as if to convince 
herself: her eyes did not deceiA^e her, sniffed contemptuously, and ejaculat- 
ing, "The ass, the ass!" closed the door AAnth a bang. Than Avhich action 
it seems to your historian, nothing could more sufficiently prove the efficiency 
of a boarding-school education and the sound philosophy of parting one's 
hair doAvn the middle of one's back, for although the ignorant unphilosophic 
landlady dismissed a peck of love letters, valentines and photographs with 
one contemptuous sniff, her boarding-school daughter and the dry goods 
young man could by no means express all their vicAvs and opinions Avith re- 
gard to them in the three hours they that evening dcA^oted to the important 
subject, and Avere obliged to adjourn that meeting to one at the earliest 
possible date for a further consideration of it. 

The landlady's tAvo sons Avere running night turn in a clinker factory 
hard by. She noAV gave them a day turn that turned them both out of bed 



Don Frittaker's History. 19 

and dressed them to boot in about two jifRes. When they reached the hall 
below a bundle lay on one side of Don, and his working clothes on the other, 
and the boys having had a day turn themselves, now proceeded to give Don 
one that turned him out of his best clothes into his worst ones with a celerity 
that, so far as known, greatly exceeded Don's own best efforts. This done, 
the boys turned back the way they came, and turned into bed again, their 
mother presently following with Don's new suit, which she put carefully away, 
but not with the love letters, castor oil and Jew's harp. This done, she put 
on her shawl and bonnet and went — well, no matter where she went; she'll 
be back pretty soon. 

When three or four women -foregather on a sidewalk, three or four 
more will presently join them, and of all the vehicles in the world no vehicle 
in the world will foregather women like a peddler's wagon. When the 
landlady rettlrned pretty soon, 'twas with a potato peddler and his wagon. 
The wagon was empty. Three or four women, the landlady's nearest 
neighbors, foregathered at once and the landlady explained the situation. 
By this time the three or four other women had put in their appearance and 
the landlady explained the situation again. Thereupon all the foregathered 
women overflowed with sympathy, mostly for Don at the first, mostly for 
the landlady at the last. ''Come, come, me wumman, what did ye breng 
me here fur?" asked the potato peddler, who was an Irishman. This brought 
the landlady to the exigencies of the case which she at once explained to the 
foregathered women by stating that when the beds in a boarding-house are 
made up in the morning they are made up for all day, and can by no possi- 
bility be unmade that day again ; that to let Don, in his present condition 
ride in a wagon without a bed in it would be inhuman cruelty on the part of 
the foregathered women, who were, of course, charitable, and one of them 
especially pious, to whom she broadly intimated that the piety that couldn't 
stand the lending of a bed was ]n'ety that was of no account. This was 
efficacious for the pious woman turned into her house and presently turned 
out again with a bed and a, face that somehow looked longer than when she 
turned in, no doubt from excess of pious enthusiasm, "Mrs. (1," said the 
landlady, "havn't you got a pillow?" What Avoma-n hasn't a number of 
pillows? How could she pretend to say she hadn't one? So she didn't 
bandy words, but went and brought one and Avas done Avith it (in more 
senses than one). "Xow," said the landlady, "if we only had Don in the 
wagon. I expect (looking around ),'tAvill keep us all pretty busy to put him 
in." Then headed by the Irish potato man, they proceded to the hall, 
Avhere the Irish potato man took charge of Don's head, as he sagely remark- 
ed, to see and keep the strain off it, and the landlady took charge of Don's 
feet to see and keep the strain off them. And then, Avith that Avonderful 
readiness of faculty characteristic of superior executive ability, the landlady 
and the Irish potato man ranged the foregathered women equally on each 



* Scotch— To meet accidently. 




20 Bon Fkittaker's History. 

man solemnly adjuring them to "tak' a gaid grnpp and howld for their very 
dear lives," (and one of the women expressing some doubts on the subject), 
himself and the landlady both in a l)reath assured them the}^ could with per- 
fect safety strain any amount so they only lifted enough. 

These preliminaries settled, the cavalcade started and the foregathered 
w^oman lifted nobly, the Irish potato man assured them that of it, by a 
constant repetition of bully, bully, which brought them in good time and 
good order to the side of the wagon. "Now then, up, up ! heave yo all 
hands," said the Irish potato man, and the foregathered women heaved, and 
Don balanced most equitably for a moment on the edge of tlie wagon box, 
and then suddenly dropped in a very clieap sort of a way, indeed, to the 
bottom of it. " Ilould hard there, me boy," said the Irish potato man, in 
a loud tone of stern authority, that struck mortal terror to the heart of the 
foregathered women. What had they done ? Was he killed ? would they 
all get hanged for it ? and they each and all opened their mouths and 
gazed with horror at one another with them. But as not one of them knew 
better than another, Avhether they could, would, or should be hanged, or 
not, they all turned to the Irish potato man, wlio had mounted his wagon 
and to their great relief, he only said: "Come now, skip up here some o' ye 
and help me *whammel him in the bed." But a look of fixed determin- 
ation came over every face of the foregathered women. A risk like that, 
(whatever it had been,) they could not, would not run again. The land- 
lady, seeing this, skipped herself and skipped like a lamplighter, too, and 
the potato man and she whammeled Don and she slcipped out again, 
alightening on the ground, with the bound of an India rubber ball. ' ' ISTow, ' ' 
she exclaimed triumphantly, " if we onlj^ liad a comfort to cover him, he's 
all ready." Again the foregathered women opened their mouths and looked 
at one another with them this time, with an expression as if each was going 
to ask the other where all this was going to end. The land lad}^ understood 
it and added deprecatingly, addressing one in particular, that any old thing 
would do. "Come! come !" said the Irish potato man, "I can't stand 
here all day, and the fellow needs a comfort, and a good, warm one, too. " To 
be sure, he did ; although 'twas late October, 'twas warm as July ; and 
this showed that the Irish potato man knew what he was talking about, and the 
sequel shoAved that he had a keen eye to business, when he said it, and his saying- 
it when he did, brought the foregathered woman in particular right up to the 
scratch at once ; for she shut her mouth as if she were shutting it for good 
and all, and went and brought a comfort such as he prescribed. 

The landlady put a greenback in his hand and said, "To the West 
Penn, " but whether that were a pig pen or not, the Irish potato man didn't 
ask, but put the greenback in his pocket, winked with a look of profound 
sagacity at the landlady, bowed with a convulsive expression of countenance 

*Scotch.— Turned him around. 



Don Fbittaker's History. 21 

side of the solidly substantial portion of Don's habeas corpus^ the Irish potato 
t8 the foregathered women and said, *'0h! ye're beauties iverj wan av 
ye, ' ' wliereat the foregathered women again opened their mouths and looked, 
every one at the other, to see if she believed it or not, and seeing plainly 
that the other hadn't the least doubt of it, she believed it, too, and it 
being a highly satisfactory article of faith, they unanimuosly smiled their 
approbation and disforegathered each to her separate home. And the 
Irish potato man peddled away with Don, and actually peddled him to the 
West Penn, (which proved to be a hospital,) instead of into the river, but 
never, no never peddled bedding or potatoes up that street or down that 
street that passes the landlady's door. 

' ' Well ! ' ' said the surgeon of the West Penn to his assistant, 
thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, while taking in the situation as 
presented by the conglomerate of sausage meat and cinders, '^Well, that 
was a glorious jamboree and a high oltl time. ' ' He was right, and he 
luight have added that Don's whole life had been jamboree, more or less, 
and that Don had managed to infuse more or less jamboree into the lives of 
all he came in contact with. But this surgeon was no moralizer nor meta- 
physical speculator, but a German of the most practical stamp, and devoted 
himself to surgery of the most practical stamp, as we shall see. For he 
immediately took the case of instruments the assistant held, selected a hand- 
ful of glittering hooks and prongs, and began to plow deep in the sausage 
meat and cinders. Presently a hook stuck fast somewhere, the surgeon 
gave a hefty tug, and the end of Don's nose came to the surface. This 
\vas encouraging and encouraged by it, the surgeon, Avith renewed ardor, 
resumed the plowing. Presently an eye made its appearance ; this, the 
surgeon manipulated tenderly and dexterously, and finally landed it safely 
in its proper socket, the other ^vas soon fished up and landed too, and the 
surgeon, by extreme care and good management, succeeded in properly 
adjusting them both. " Charming, " said the surgeon to his assistant, the 
periphery of whose eyes and circumference of whose mouth had perceptibly 
widened as the operation progressed. "Charming ! they're both as good as 
new," if I can only discover the whereabouts of his mouth, I'll soon have 
him all right again. If any doubt of this lurked in the assistant's mind, he 
gave it no expression, from which I conclude there was no doubt of it lurk- 
ing in his mind, nor can I see how a doubt of it could lurk in anybody's 
mind. Whether or not, the surgeon plowed deeper than ever, saying as 
he did so, that if a fellow had an opening anywhere in his face that would 
lead to his stomach, he could get along. Upon hearing this new and 
valuable surgical axiom, the assistant immediately drew out his note book, 
and made a note of it — which was quite correct ; axioms should never be 
permitted to go to loss, especially surgical axioms, and if by any possibility, 
the eyes and mouth of the surgeon's assistant could have widened any more, 
your historian has no doubt they would have widened when an axiom like 
this was announced. 



22 Don Fkittakek's IIistoby. 

Deftly, the surgeon plied the handful of hooks and prongs, and the 
sausao'c meat and cinders underwent that curious transformation, tlmt 
froth undergoes when you stir it about — disappears under your eyes, but 
how, or when, or where, you never can tell — anyhow its gone. The out- 
line of an opening grew distinctly visible ; the surgeon gave a screw and a 
sudden twist at one side, as if he was anchoring something, and dropped the 
handful of instruments, exclaiming triumphantly, '< 'Now then, ain't I hard 
to beat ? ' ' the assistant triumphantly assented by trying to close his mouth 
and eyes again, and was rather more surprised than delighted, to find that 
he couldn't. But your historian, who can open and shut hers at pleasure, 
does declare and affirm, and will maintain it in the face of all opposition, 
that this is a surgeon- and-a half and a surgeon that can't be beat, let the 
other come from where he may. And don't it beat the very deuce any- 
how, that one on all occasions must buckle on their armor and grind their 
battle axe and put on war paint, and breathing threatening and slaughter, 
rush to the front in defense of incom])arable ability, as I do now in defense of 
this surgeon, who, in the very nature of tilings, should need no defending ; 
his manifold merits, and their incalcuable value being self evident. Yet, if 
I didn't as I do, with warpaint and tomahawk, intimidate the constitutional 
grumblers, they would be forever in the front, storming like mad. 

What business had he with Don Frittaker, they would all howl together. 
Who wanted the worthless brute to live? Of what good is he, the abominable, 
contemptible, lying, cheating villain? Who thanks the old Dutch butcher 
knife for grubbing around in the disgusting rotten smear and fishing out 
his brazen snoot and patching it up? The welfare of the public, they storm, 
should be the first consideration of every surgeon and every historian. 
How is the welfare of the public conserved by remodelling this degraded 
brute, who, as long as there is a breath in him, will only grow in brutality. 
And then everybody is madder than ever, and set about investigating and 
pitch into your historian. We don't believe, say they, that this alleged 
history is history at all. A surgeon like that is a fool, and a historian like 
this is an idot. If your alleged history is anything but lies, Don Frittaker 
had no business there. J^obody had any business to send him there. It's 
very well understood, they growl, that we never gave our hard-earned 
money to prolong the existence of vicious criminals; that we built and we 
support the institution for worthy unfortunates. And this brings the offi- 
cials in a body to the front. And they swell the clamor with their protesta- 
tions. Nobody wanted him here; his being here was all a mistake, some- 
body blundered. This institution is not for such trash, is not free to any 
body but officials, and their families. Other people pay, of course. 

Worse and worse, the grumblers all howl together. Everybody has to 
pay in this free institution but you and your families, you and your families 
use up all the State appropriations appropriated out of our pockets, and all 
private bequests and we in our misfortune get in to pay and pay roundly. 
Whew! this is news; a fine kettle of fish; and Dutch surgeon; and drivel- 



Don Fkittakeb's IIistojry. 23 

ling idiot that writes his history. So now you see clearly why I always 
w^far war paint and a sharp tomahawk and stand in the front. Nothing 
meritorious could stand on the face of the earth if I didn't. 

"Now then," said, the surgeon when their little jubilation was over, 
"now then, the needle and plaster." Both were immediately forth- 
coming, and the surgeon stitched here and stitched there, and the 
assistant plastered piaster everywhere, until Don's physiognomy dis- 
a[)peared under it altogether. When both surgeon and assistant exclaimed 
"Well done," and the surgeon added, "Now, my boy, in three weeks you'll 
have a new face, good bye, ' ' Don, thankless creature, said nothing not 
even good bye. But when three weeks after he stood ready to depart on 
the threshold of the West Penn, he had a new face. So completely and 
thoroughly new it was that nobody could or would have suspected that he 
was the real original Don Frittaker. And as it devolves upon your histo 
rian to give a full and reliable "diagnostrum of its newness" your histo- 
rian unhesitatingly pronounces Don's new month the newest part of his new 
face. It would undoubtly have been perfectly circular but for one of those 
peculiar whorls characteristic of some univalve shells, this whorl was at the 
side where the surgeon gave the linishing twist and anchored something, and 
gave the beholder an ineradicable impression that Don's new mouth would 
henceforth, like a pitcher, empty at one side on the circular side of 
Don's month, its new lips were strangely rigid as if they might be lined with 
tin— -copper-bottomed with it, as a sailor would say. His new nose unpleas- 
antly suggested a half-way measure that the surgeon had adopted to get an 
unpleasant and troublesome piece of business off hand; his new eyes, each 
in its way painfully endeavoring to get a look behind Don's back, which, if 
they succeeded in doing, would certainly have been very useful and advan- 
tageous to Don. And now your historian assures everybody that this is a 
full and in every particular reliable diagnostrum, and no mistake. As I said 
before and repeat now, your historian could not by any possibility make a 
mistake. 

Yes, Don Frittaker stands on the threshold of the West Penn hospital 
ready to embark again on the river of life; but, alack a-day I'm sorry to say, 
that barrin' the matter of the new face, Don in all other respects was the 
old Don, for a nurse who had been particularly kind and attentive to him, 
had besides lent him a dollar, he forgot to bid good bye with, while another 
fellow who one day threatened to put a new head on Don (as if the new one 
he had wasn't new enough) he hardly could part with, so affected was he 
that his new eyes overflowed with tears and his new mouth threatened to do 
the same at the emptying side. 

Of all the occurrences since the picnic Don remembered nothing. The 
picnic and his life previous to it he remembered very well, and one of the 
things he remembered best was the new suit of clothes he wore on that occa- 
sion, and as he had regularly paid his landlady in advance, for the good 
reason she wouldn't be paid any other way, he could with perfect safety 



24: Don Fkittaker's History. 

claim them, and not doubting that that worthy hidy had them he went 
directly back from the West Penn to her house. When he announced him 
self as being Don Frittaker, to say the landlady was amazed is to put the case 
very mildly, and that for reasons of her own she was very unwilling to 
believe it and positively refused to do so at first, is not at all surprising, but 
Don persisting in insisting that he was himself and furthermore describing 
and demanding his new suit, she rehmctantly, improbable as it appeared, 
admitted that he might be liimself, but that she might have his new suit she 
pronounced an utter impossibility, and to prove it, she related with many 
embellishments, the charitable liberality of herself and neighbors in provid- 
ing bedding and conveyance at their own expense and seeing that Don 
was still incredulous (and when Don's new face expressed incredulity it was 
wonderful to look upon), she took him out with her and loudly summoned the 
foregathered women to corroborate her testimony with their own, inli nating 
with considerable feeling that an unjust and injurious accusation was made 
against her impliedly, if not openly, and that their sympathies were now 
requisite and confidently expected. But the foregatliered women, whose 
bedding had fi^oated away on the last tide of sympathy, couldn't be induced 
to foregather on the sidewalk this time. They contented themselves with 
taking in the situation from their upper windows where, Avhen convinced 
that their wordly goods were perfectly safe, they one and all vehemently 
asseverated the landlady's innocence and as vehemently asseverated the Irish 
potato man's guilt, assuring Don that an Irish potato man who would steal 
bedding would steal the very best clothing in the world, and had assuredly 
stolen his. Nevertheless the contortions of incredulity in Don's new counte- 
nance only contorted the more, and the landlady seeing this, took effective 
measures to get quit of Don by fixing her eyes intently on the whorl at one 
side of Don's new mouth. It is indeed, very singular that this mouth that 
Avas the surgeons Chef de (Fuvere, the acme, as it were, of his achievements 
in the matter of mouth -making, and consequently his pride and glory, was 
held by Don in great abomination, he could neither bear to look at it him- 
self nor endure any other body to do so. Our wide-awake landlady 
perceived this, and turned it to her own account, and by so doing soon 
disconcerted Don, and to that extent that his memory was refreshed and he 
recollected that he had never paid one dollar on his suit, that in fact it 
didn't belong to him and couldn't therefore be any loss to his own pocket, 
and a conviction seizing him that the landlady was scrutinizing his detestable 
mouth that she might be able to rejjort it fully to her boarding school 
daughter and the dry goods 3'oung man, he made his escape at once and 
went at once in search of a new boarding house and being financially bank- 
rupt was fain to seek refuge in a five dollar one. When it rains calamit}'' 
it ahvays pours; besides, the standing aggravation of this mouth he never bar- 
gained for, and the mortification of a cheap boarding house on a back street 
new difficulties presented themselves. Don soon found that that Jay Cooke bus- 
iness was going to cook himself, do him brown in fact; many of the clinker 



DoK Feittakee's Histoey. 95 

factories that before it were running double turn, didn't tarn at all now; 
others that were turning single turn, the great •'! am's" said were turn- 
ing oftener than circumstances warranted. It was not now great pressure 
of work and scarcity of hands but greiit pressure of hands and 
scarcity of work, and the great "I am's" were sagely turning this 
to their own advantage. For years they had been robbed by the thrift 
less unprincipled, unscrupulous Don Frittakers, who never do a fair days 
work for their day's wages if they can help it; who never care a button 
for their employers property or interests, who if they coul I safely destroy 
either would ratlier do so, than not; who never care a button for the safety 
of other peoples' limbs, or lives; never a button for the misery, suffering, and 
loss their misconduct and recklessness entail upon their fellow beino-s. The 
"I am's" had endured and tolerated the nuisance just as other nuisances of ten 
must be and are tolerated until opportunity offers for abating them. 

Now they were abating the Frittaker nuisance. Honorable, honest 
workmen could now be had in abundance and no Frittaker could sret 
work, neither could our Don, from any employer who had ever employed 
him before; result— he must tramp, steal or starve. Don tramped. And 
for tramping he was fully prepared — no money, no clothes, no reputation for 
anything good. A tramp's complete outfit and the winter just set- 
ting in, nothing could be more propitious. Don set out. (lood-bye, Don. 
This world of ours is one of the very few things that can turn and turn and 
still go on. This world of ours has turned and gone on precisely the same 
as before ever since Don left us three years ago. Whether Don turned and 
turned while he wenton your historian don't know nor does she know whether 
it was the world's turningor Don's own turnhig brought Don back to Pittsburg, 
anyhow Don is back. Don set the fact forth very lugubriously in a letter 
to an evening paper some four or five weeks ago. Fve got another day turn, 
says Don. A conscienceless landlord gives it to me, says Don. Its diluted 
water, mackerel bones and beans some other follow didn't leave, says Don. 
Its peppered with dirt, says Don, and salted with lilth, says Don, and it's 
lifteen cents a jarum, says Don, and tliis last feather breaks the back of 
Don's temper, as whilom did the black-eyed little girl business, and Don 
waxeth exceeding wrathy and quotes Shakespeare. Oh, shade of Dogberry, 
Don Frittaker quote Shakespeare! How that stirs the innermost soul of 
your historian. Did you when in the flesh ever outsport discretion in 
this sort, Dogberry? What! Who is that says I w?^-s;{ be mistaken? That, 
this canH be Don Frittaker? That Don Frittaker couldn't spout Shakes- 
peare if he'd try. Haven't I told you over and over, I don't make mistakes. 
But you shall see. I'll ask. For one must show some people proof of 
everything. Did he come to your office, Mr. Editor? did you see 
him? had he a new mouth? dia his mouth empty at one side? Was his new 
nose an abridged Missouri compromise? Were both his new eyes trying to 
get a peep at the rear of his back? But what's the use of asking? Don't I 
know there can be. no mistake? Who but Don would while away his time 



26 Don Fkittakee's History. 

spooning at a dirt- begrimed shadow of notliingV Who but lie would hold it 
between him and the sky with a fork for a better contemplation of its true 
ill ward ness? Who but he would pay fifteen cents more than once for such 
a culinary hallucination when in any grocery he could buy a loaf of excel- 
lent bread for six cents a pound, of excellent crackers for six and a quarter,, 
pound of first-class cheese, dry beef, bologna or a quarter peck of apples for 
5 cents? ISTo brain but a brain like his could touch such an imbecile depth 
of inanity? None other than he could tramp past a thousand opportunities 
of doing better with his last fifteen cents, and never think or say, I can and 
I will do better. Yes, your historian knows this, is one or the other of the 
pick and choice of Dons you can have by calling at the conscienceless land- 
lord's institution. His report for January is in her hand, which states that 
one thousand and fifty-nine Don Frittakers were admitted there during that 
month, of these nine hundred and six were unmarried men and widowers. 
Of the entire number admitted one thousand and twenty-one were in good 
health; plenty of Dons certainly. But the Don who grappled so valiantly 
with the dirt begrimed shadow was not the only Don of them who ' 'outsport- 
ed discretion" in the columns of the papers. 

Another yowls a terrible yowl and asserts that two-thirds of the great 
army of tramps were made such under a Republican administration, and are 
not tramps of choice, but necessity. What a horrible thing a Republican 
administration is ! And what a strange thing it is that all the men under it 
don't tramp! How do so many manage to stay at home? How do 
they manage to get homes (and homes of their own, too) to stay in? Sup- 
pose your historian would show Don how some things can be done 
just as well as others under a Republican administration. Here is 
my excellent neighbor, Mr. K. Six years ago he came to work in 
the clinker-factory, bringing his wife and two children. They rent- 
ed a house of one very large room on a lot eighteen by ninety feet. This 
couple are Germans in Germany, well-to-do people, breakfast on bread and 
coffee; dinner consists of bread, potatoes, kraut, bacon or pork; in the coun- 
try, milk; in the towns, beer; supper, bread and coffee. As a rule, well-to- 
do people in Germany live all their lives, Sundays and holidays excepted, on 
this fare, and are strong, healthy and happy as the average American. Mr. 
K and his excellent wife having lived so in Germany, and seeing that by liv- 
ing so in these United States they could, although Mr. K was only 
a laborer, save money and buy property, they, w^ithout any philosophizing, 
set about it. To-day he owns the little house, has built a kitchen back of 
it, a cellar under it, has paid for it and also bought and partly paid for 
another lot, and has meanwhile fed and clothed himself, wife and children. 
They have five now, and no man can say that this excellent citizen ever 
cheated him out of a dollar. I select him and the others I shall mention 
because I personally know and can vouch for their honesty. 

Another who came about the same time to seek his fortune in our burg 
and went to ' work in our clinker factory, rented one of the same row of 



Don Fkittaker's History. 27 

little houses, had a wife and five children. They too lived on the same 
fare, they, too, were Germans; he, too, was a laborer in the clinker factory. 
His good wife is a marvel of enterprise and industry. She kept cows, took 
washing, sold yeast, goes out nursing the sick, and 1 look as I write this, 
on their new house, cellar, hall, four large rooms, finished garret, built 
in excellent style on two large lots on a first-class street, costing in all not 
less than three thousand dollars, and, I'm told, paid for, as has meanwhile 
been every article of food, clothing or other necessaries of life they ever 
used. They also own and have paid for tAvo of • the litttle houses they 
formerly lived, in. Another who started at the same time, in the same row 
of houses and under similar circumstances, owns two of the houses and a 
dairy of fourteen cow^s. That marvelous model of sticky fingered Frittaker 
ingenuity, the Universal Trust Company gobbled up two hundred and fifty 
of this w^orthy couple's hard-earned dollars. In the same row^ of little 
houses, some five years ago, came a little Dutch woman who should put to 
shame every beggar and trauip in these United States. Her husband is 
dead; she is childless, friendless; she has supported herself through long- 
years by gathering, drying and selling herbs — not a profitable business by 
any means; she attends market in all weather, is nearly seventy-five years 
of age, has bought and paid for her little house within the last five years. 

And into the head-quarters of the mackerel bones there tramped last 
month, 6 bakers, 12 bricklayers, 10 boiler-makers, 8 butchers, i) clerks, 20 
carpenters, 10 cooks, 7 cigar-makers, 29 farmers, 35 moulders, 31 miners, 
24 machinists, 31 painters, 18 printers, 11 puddlers, 12 railroaders, 17 sail- 
ors, 16 shoe-makers, 13 stone cutters, 5 tinnei's, 5 tailors, 6 weavers, 698 
laborers, of whom 972 were unencumbered by families, and who for the seven 
or eight years preceding the last three years must have earned wages vary- 
ing from two to five dollars per day, according to their occupation. Oh, 
whiskey, whiskey! Oh, imbecile depths of inanity : But what's the use of 
preaching : 

Almost every phase of domestic life is represented on our burg. One 
and all of its well-to-do inhabitants have had more or less of the difficul- 
ties and obstacles that impede human progress to contend with, one and all, 
without exception, have had to contend with these disadvantages wherewith 
a Kepublican administration floored this one thousand and fifty Don 
Frittakers, yet they are not floored. On the contrary, they flourish simply 
by having practiced such wise precepts as "a penny saved is a penny earned, " 
' 'take care of the pennies, and the pounds will take care of themselves, " when 
wages were good and work abundant. If Don instead of spitting tobacco 
juice over the enterprising people vastly superior to him and fumbling in 
a dazed way through Charles Reade's "Put Yourself in His Place," would 
open his eyes to what nien who have families to support can and do accom 
plish, would see how well they support their families while acquiring prop- 
erty, and a good deal of it, Don might be a wiser, if not a better man. Our 
burg is a quite a town, and with the exception of the clinker factory, and 



r 



28 Don Fkittaker's History. 

some forty or fifty dwellings belonging to it, has been built within the last seven 
vears bv mechanics and laborers who supported families ranging from three 
to seven members; men whose wives, though just as willing to assist their 
husbands, as tiie wives I have mentioned, were wholly unable to do so 
otherwise than by ])rudent management of their households. And Don 
might also learn another important fact, that those men would one and all 
be better off to-day but for the various ways in which they have been rob- 
bed by the comtemptible, despicable Frittakers, sticky and slippery finger- 
ed both — the Frittakers who will never under any administration study the 
ways of the Ant or Honey Bee. 
February. 1877- 

-X- -X- * * * -X- 

It is over sixteen long years .since I wrote Don's history for him, but Don 
shall not lose anything by that. Instead, I am now able to make Don a 
])resent of a chapter out of my own biography. Much good may it do him. 
It is good to be afflicted, therefore, I have no scruple about making Don 
a present of it. The sixteen years it represents, laid a heavy hand on my- 
self. But they taught me to '< paddle my own canoe." Moreover, my 
palms always itch intolerably to })addle the Frittaker canoes as well. I sup- 
pose this to be an idiosyncrasy of my character. The Frittakers hold it 
sheer inborn cussedness, closely akin to total depravity, if not the simon- 
pure article. However this may be, the Jay Cooke business, that under a 
Republican administrati(jn floored Don Frittaker, and sent him forth with a 
bran-new face, to live by b3ggary, robbery and outrage, set myself down in 
the valley of humiliation, and its sack cloth and ashes financially. 

Out of a large amount of property, only one small house anJ lot on 
which was a mortgage of one thousand five hundred dollars, and one hundred 
and sixty dollars cash was left. With which one hundred and sixty dollars 
in the basement of our mortgaged house, in the spring of 1878, I embarked 
in grocery store keeping. One hundred and sixty dollars won't buy much 
of anything. Interest, one hundred and twenty dollars per year ; taxes, 
eighty- one dollars-. A childlike and bland young man, who was no 
Chinee, called the fii'st month and looked the situation over. It was all on 
four short shelves and a shorter counter. He entered me in the fourteenth 
business class, eight dollars per year. And I was now all ready to trauip 
myself through the darkest period of the business depression that followed 
the great panic of '73. The prospect was so black, that I fancied I saw in 
its midnight gloom. Nebulte and Constellations no astronomer ever heard 
tell of. What else I might have discovered, if there had been time for 
star-gazing, heaven knows, there was no time. I had already tramped 
in the domestic tread mill over forty years, and through all those years, it 
had been more or less hard, dirty Avork, nearly every day. Tramp, tramp ! 
But it wasn't altogether a circumstance to the tramping that now set in. 
It began in the morning at 4, or half after 4 o'clock, and lasted until 10, 



Don Frittakek's History. 29 

ll, or 12 at' night, as circunastances dictated. Those circumstances con- 
sisted, in part, of various trampings to a leading auction house, where in 
those days, ten dollars' ^Yorth of a bankrupt stock could be bouglit for a 
dollar. Standing or tramping there from 10 o'clock in the morning, until 
4 in the afternoon, without a drop of water to drink, or a crumb to eat, 
and tramp home, often carrying packages weighing 20 or 25 pounds, hiring 
some kind of a vehicle if the amount exceeded this, get home and face my 
waiting impatient customers, and supply their wants. As a rule, it was 1 2 
at night when those speculative picnics were over. And hard life as that 
was for a woman, I knew others had harder lives. I still know such, and 
like myself, they prefer such a hard life to either tramping, or in any other 
way robbing and cheating other people for a living. By such toilsome 
method, I increased largely my paltry stock, and diligence brought its 
usual reward. There is a great number of good, honest people still left in 
the world. My good neighbors sympathized with my endeavors to earn my 
living and pay my debts. My trade grew apace. I was able to meet all 
obligations as they fell due. The Frittakers, both branches, came and went. 
But I knew them of old, and they didn't, with their store books, gather in 
much of my worldly goods. 

Well, I tramped and turned and went on ; and only think of it, every 
Frittaker hadn't one glass of beer, nor one drop of whiskey. 'No, it's not 
a mistake. There is not a more reliable historical fact, or more trustworthy 
asseveration in all this history. Ah ! what do I hear, Don's history smells 
like whiskey all through ? Come, come, right here I must state that there' 
is criticism that has reason in it, that is fair, that is just. But there is also 
criticism that is a provocation, an aggravation, and beyond the bounds of 
human endurance. Let all such critics beware. Keep their hands off ; 
their tongues off ; their pens off ; criticism that will cheapen Don and 
cheapen Don's history, I'll neither endure nor tolerate.) And it is also 
true that the money beer and whiskey would have cost helped to pay off the 
mortgage and every cent of interest and taxes. I floored them all, Don, 
they didn't floor me. And did it simply with sobriety, industry and 
economy. And when, at the end of eight weary years, it was all over, and 
I balanced my books and declared a dividend, I found that my oAvn wages 
had been just seventy-eight cents per day, my boarding and about twenty- 
five dollars' worth of clothing included. All the rest had gone into the 
mortgage, interest, taxes and the Frittaker baskets. I could have earned 
one dollar and twenty- five cents and my boarding at a wash tub, Avith nine 
hours labor and without a tithe of the care, perplexity and anxiety that 
almost maddened me. And you and the other mechanics who tramped into 
the headquarters of the mackerel bones, and who I have no doubt have been 
tramping ever since, could have earned at least two dollars and fifty cents 
per day working nine hours daily, and could have been well-to do, respect- 
able citizens by this time, if it hadn't been for beer and whiskey, gambling, 
and other bad habits about which vou know the most and tell the least. 



80 Bon Fkittaker's History. 

And when yourself and the other Frittakers, your gospel in hand, come 
around to divide up that 78 cents per day with me, I do hereby in black 
and white solemnly depose, asseverate and promise you a Donnybrook Fair 
that will far iiway eclipse that last picnic you enjoyed in the early days of 
the Jay Cooke business, one that none of the real original Donnybrooks in 
ould Ireland ever excelled. And moreover, as it will be the first one I ever 
gave you and the last one you will desire to get at my hands, I will myself 
see to it that the new body the old Dutch surgeon at the West Penn will 
devise and invent for you, does in every particular match your new face 
exactly, so that thereafter you may be all of one piece, so to speak, Don, 
and not a cheap patching up of some kind simply to get you off his hands. 
And here I must state for your further benefit that the obstacles and diffi- 
culties I floored arose under a Kepublican administration, and under a Repub- 
lican administration I floored them, and for 78 cents per day, which lat- 
ler fact does not cheapen me in the least in my own estimation; nor does 
the fact that I wheeled many a sack of flour up the street or down the street 
to my customers do so; nor the fact that I wore brogans almost like the pair 
the Irishman showed you, only there were no hob nails in mine; nor does 
the sun bonnet, tow cloth apron and dress patched three ply under the el- 
bows humiliate me. When I think of them I shall remember them all. my 
life with pride. But what my humiliation would be to-day if I, in a country 
like ours teeming with golden opportunities and cheap abundance, had squan- 
dered in drunken debauchery all my earnings and then tramped up and down 
begging and stealing the hard earnings of other people, I cannot conceive, let 
alone describe, Don Frittaker. But I can and do assure you that if I could 
write a history like Henry Thomas Buckle's, or poetry like John Milton's, I 
would not be half so proud of either as I am of my victory over the great 
financial disaster of my life, a victory gained without assistance from any 
quarter. 

Because of the Jay Cooke business I never jet could publish Don's his- 
tory for him. It's too bad, but its better late than never. I assure Don 
and everybody else that my desire to publish it has never diminished in the 
least. And I do it now with all my heart. And if when Don reads it, he 
desires to have it further amplified, I'll do that, too, for Don. I'll not, if I 
can help it, have Don's history come to any kind of lame conclusion. On 
the contrary I'm going to do Don proud. I have learned that there is in 
the Woman's Department of the great Columbian Fair a library, and in it 
there is a niche for the literary escapades of self-educated women; and as all 
the literary education I have I acquired by diligent if rather desultory study 
at home, in the occasional pauses in the toils, cares and trampings of my lot, 
I claim to be a self-educated woman and one that can't be beaten in the mat- 
ter of literary escapades. So I have applied for space in the aforesaid niche 
for this volume. And if any critic prowling around and through that niche 
should upon examination of it feel in duty bound to tear me all to pieces, 
and then and there annihilate myself and Don's history, I beg him or her to 



Bon Frittakeb's HistoeY. 



SI 



consider well the fact that I liave not written two volumes of introduction to 
Don's history. Have in fact for peace sake written no introduction what- 
ever to Don's history. And moreover, with the most praiseworthy forebear- 
ancCj have printed only a score or so of poems instead of dumping a Web- 
sters unabridged dictionary of them out of the press upon afflicted humanity. 
Let everybody, especially the critical ones, consider well what they have 
escaped, and forgive me the wrong I have done in consideration of the wrong 
I didn't do. 




Mr. Gander. 



Mr. G tinder wanted to borrow one hundred dollars from me this morn- 
ing. I excused mj^self by assuring- Mr. Gander that I couldn't lend him 
one hundred cents, let alone one hundred dollars, which may be true or it 
may not. If it is not, if my assurance to Mr. Gander was a lie, I feel no 
compunction. In previous business transactions between myself and Mr 
Gander, Mr. Gander told me a multitude of lies, and they were premeditated 
lies deliberately told, and for the dishonest purpose of taking advantage of 
me in the value of the goods he was selling me; in short, for the express 
purpose of cheating me. Yet I don't hold Mr. Gander resjionsible for the 
lies he told me and everybody who dealt with him. I hold the State and 
its legislation responsible for the lying of us both. Mr. Gander may have 
set out in an honest career with the best of honest intentions. I don't know 
anything about how Mr. Gander set out in his career. I never knew Mr. 
Gander at all until he came peddling round with his peddling wagon piled 
full of barrels and baskets that contained a varied assortment of farm and 
garden produce, but he didn't produce them himself. Heaven forefend that 
the farming and gardening population should betake themselves to the mar- 
keting practices and principles of Mr. Gander. JSTo, Mr. Gander bought his 
stock always, if possible, he assured me, from the producer. And that I 
believed very well, for the granger is often a greenhorn and no match for 
Mr. Gander, and Avere he a credulous granger, Mr. Gander would assuredly 
be a gainer and the granger a loser in whatever transactions they had with 
each other. But I inferred Mr. Gander couldn't always buy from the pro- 
ducer, for a great deal of Mr. Gander's stock had a travelled look. The 
wilted, yellow radish leaves told of the earlier spring of "Ole Virginny 
Shore," or "Maryland, My Maryland"; so did his wilted beans and peas. 
The wilting he de]_)lored as an effect of the sun when I suggested the ravages 
of thne. lie demonstrated at once, in the most lucid as well as voluble 
manner, that time didn't affect them that way, and I, having provoked the 
controversy and seeing no sign that he would weary of it soon, cut it short 
by bargaining for a barrel of potatoes. And Avhen we settled on the price, 
he proposed to donate the barrel, but nothing Avould serve my turn but 
have them measured in my own measure, which he did ^vith alacrity, appar- 
ently cheerful, whether it was honestly so I no more know than I know 
about his early intentions. The intention and purpose of his lying I believe 
to be, in a great measure, the consequence of that legislation that places a 
high premium on dishonesty and lying by securing the rogue who practices 



34 Mr. Gandee. 

both in peaceful possession of the goods or money he secures thereb3^ If 
Mr. Gander set out an honest man, he soon found himself being robbed on every 
hand by dishonest men. And he soon found there was no legal or other 
redress. Self-]nTservation is the predominant human instinct, so Mr. Gan- 
der, as was natural in a weak moral nature, succumbed to the temptation 
to plunder others as he had himself been plundered, seeing he could do it with 
impunity. And so I hold the State legislation responsible for Mr. Gander's 
lying and cheating; and also respausible that I myself deliberately and will 
fully, and without the least compunction, lied to Mr. Gander. It was simply 
a measure of self protection against the law that urged Mr. Gander to rob 
me, and would have aided and abetted Mr. Gander in robbing me had I per- 
mitted hiin to rob me. And I assure everyljody that I did in no wise 
deceive Mr. Gander, for Mr. Gander didn't believe a word of my statement. 
Mr. Gander knew- I could have lent him a hundred dollars if I had been 
Avilling to lend it Mr. Gander's countenance gave no intimation of Mr. 
Gander's incredulity, nor did Mr. Gander's demeanor. Mr. Gander smiled 
suavel}^, talked genially of the business outlook and the crop prospect, told 
a good anecdote, laughed merrily, bowed politely and departed. Would it 
have been better for me to tell Mr. Gander the truth, that I could lend him 
the monej^ but I wouldn't? That I knew him too well to lend him any 
money, even on the best security. That I knew that as soon as the time 
stipulated for paying me my money came around, and I, perhaps, having 
pressing need of my money, and Mv. Gander also, still having pressing need 
of it, or having it so em})lo3'ed that it paid Idm more than the interest he 
paid me, the astute Mr. Gander would not give either credence or considera- 
tion to my pressing demand for my money. ISTay, if he knew well that I 
was subjected to serious loss by his withholding my money, that would 
neither touch the feelings or conscience of Mr. Gander. The recollection of 
the fact that I loaned him the money to save him from loss in a great strait 
would arouse no coinpunction in Mr. Gander. But Mr. Gander would pre- 
varicate, would procrastinate. Mr. Gander would do this, not only because 
he was making money by keeping me out of my money, but because also my 
asking to have my money back as soon as due nettled Mr. Gander. "You're 
in a devil of a huriy," thought Mr. Gander. Then as my appeal brought 
no response, and I repeated it somewhat testily, Mr. Gander would grow 
bitterly indignant, would say to himself, "Why, now, for your impudence, 
I'll pay you so soon as I can't help it." And when we met would deplore 
the tightness of the money market and the meanness and dishonesty of those 
Avhom he trusted, and who didn't pay him, and maybe wouldn't pay him at 
all, and the gist of it all would be that as soon as those who wouldn't pay 
at all paid up, Mr. Gander would pay me. 'Now if I, poor wretch, caught 
in a trap like this and boiling over with indignation, would enter legal pro- 
ceedings, what w^ould I gain. IN'obotly outside the legal profession is better 
versed in legal tactics or better able to avail himself of the intricacies of the 
law than Mr. Gander. Over and over Mr. Gander has been sued, and every 



Me. Gandee. 35 

time it did Mr. Gander gocd every time it did the prosecutor harm. If 
we could suppose that there are men in business who never swear at all, and 
tlie men who prosecuted Mr. Gander never swore at all, it availed nothino-. 
They fell to swearing right away after they prosecuted Mr. Gander. Mr. 
Gander proved so adroit on the day fixed for trial, Mr. Gander's most im- 
]X)rtant witness failed to show up, so did Mr. Gander, because Mr. Gander 
went as usual after his business and let the prosecutor go to court and lose 
his time, and let his attorney (he hired him by the year) stave off proceedings 
until to-morrow or some other day, when the prosecutor again went to court 
and lost his time and Mr. Gander didn't; and on this occasion, if Mr. Gan- 
der's important witness produced himself, some other body or somethino- 
else caused another stave off until some other day. All the time Mr. Gan- 
der goes after his business, lying as usual, and his prosecutor goes around 
swearing, whether usual or unusuaL And at the end of two or three 
months of this, after having nearly swam])ed his soul in blasphemy, he 
gladl\^ pays the costs to be quit of the whole business. Thmks 
no more of the loss of his money or goods, whichever led him to prosecute 
Mr. Gander, nor of the heavy cost and loss of time; thinks of 'nothing but 
the jov of being quit of Mr. Gander. Knowing all this, am I going first to 
lend my money to Mr. Gander, and last to prosecute Mr. Gander? I hold 
it far wiser, far better, far safer to lie to Mr. Gander. I onlj^ hoist Mr. 
Gander with his own petard, I only foil him with his own Aveapons. And he 
knows it all the while, and I all the while know that Mr. Gander's business 
principles contain no fine sentiments of honor and sacred obligation. Hedging, 
as he would call it, to avoid pa\ang money it is profitable to use. Escaping 
out of business difficulties and dangers by dragging the unwary in, are not 
moral derelictions in Mr. Gander's estimation, but master strokes of business 
finesse., something to be ju'oud of. Dishonor! Dishonesty! Oh, get "out, j^ou 
miserable saphead, thinks Mr. Gander; do you think I'd go to t le trouble 
of borrowing your paltry hundred dollars unless I could make it pay, and 
pay well ? If I could keep the wliole amount I woukl be a fool not to keep 
it. Such are Mr. Gander's business principles and tactics. I discovered 
them in course of business transactions with Mr. Gander. In his manner 
and conversation Mr. Gander is very plausible ; very suave and genial in 
business. This is all with a view" to concealing his principles and tactics. 
Nevertheless, it led me at the outset to suspect the nature of his tactics. 
As a measure of self- protection, I proceeded at once to buy on credit from 
Mr. Gander, and then proceeded to lament to Mr. Gander that our nefarious 
exemption law^s released rogues from all liability in the matter of pa3dng 
their debts. Is it not too bad, Mr. (lander, said I, b}^ way of peroration, 
th it I neel nave^' pay yju a ce \t for all this stock of ve^e':ables and fruit 
unless I think fit ? Mr. Gander never loolced as bland as he did this morning, 
but he saw, I knew m3'self master of the situation. ]\fentally he swore con- 
siderabl}", no doubt, for Mr. Gander is neither meek nor patient. And his 
mental objurgations were none the less deep that I confidentially informed 



36 Mr. Gander. 

him that one of my business tactics was to weigh and measure and count 
everything I purchased ; no hap-hazard methods for me ; if I bought a 
pound I didn't want fifteen ounces ; if I got only fifteen I would pay for 
fifteen only. Mr. Gander smiled genially as ever, assured me that was his 
invariable practice, bowed himself out, and sent me next day the barrel of 
potatoes. Three bushels I had ordered, said the bill, and I had his boy 
empty and measure them — ^two bushels and three pedes of potatoes, and one 
peck of dirt wdiich I put carefully away for Mr. Gander. ^ Perfectly right, 
that's that devilish boy's doings : shovels up dirt and everything — I wonder 
there wasn't a bushel of it, said Mr. Gander. But I charged Mr. Gander 
the price of potatoes for that dirt, whether right or wrong, and deducted it 
from his bill ; and Mr. Gander vowed he would break that boy's neck as 
soon as he got home. Presently an agent for a trustworthy house came 
along and I forthwith paid Mr. Gander every cent I owed Mr. Gander, and 
Mr. Gander don't owe me one, nor is Mr. Gander going to owe me one, for 
it is my fixed detennination that this exemption from all indebtedness be- 
tween myself and Mr. Gander must and will Inst forever and a day. Had 
I candidly stated all this to Mr. Gander, Mr. Gander would have phoo- 
phooed and offered to credit me any amount ; to loan me five hundred dol- 
lars if I wanted it ; would have assured me that he knew me to be honesty 
and veracity itself. Other people's slanders had prejudiced me against him; 
that he had never cheated anybody in the world, never thought of doing so. 
Honest, honest lago ! Yet knowing Mr. Gander's business principles, and 
knowing Mr. Gander's business practices, and knowing that the laws of my 
State, Pennsylvania, incites and urges Mr. Gander to be a rogue and a cheat, 
and to cheat me if he can ; and causes Mr. Gander to lose money by being 
honest, and rewards him liberally for being a rascal, in that he can legally 
hold fast to all the plunder he obtains b}" lying and cheating ; and, more- 
over, plants a banner of stripes and stars over my head and assures me that 
I am brave and free, yet delivers me a slave to Mr. Gander the minute I 
loan him one hundred dollars, and obliges me to take refuge in the slave's 
subterfuge of lying, makes me a lying poltroon to, if possible, sav^e my 
money. I, knowing all this, know enough to keep my money out of the 
clutches of Mr. Gander. 



The Next Colombian Fair. 



' 'What will it be ? " pe6])le ask. And I, who aiu one of those who 
know eveiTthing and am alwa^^s willing- to tell everybody, corae promptly 
to the front, bnt not feeling half so cheerful'as I Avould like to feel to answer 
the question. It will never be at all. When the time to hold it comes 
around, this land of ours will l)e the habitat of the owls and the bats and a 
prowling multitude of naked savages to whom the extinct red men were not 
a circumstan(5e in tlie matter of savage, murderous cussedness and unmiti- 
gated worthlessness. Is it any wonder I don't feel cheerful? " 'Tis tlie 
sunset of life gives me mystical lore.'' "And the coming events that cast 
their shadows before" are as follows: Our ]n'esent legislation is simply the 
drooling of idiots, and an embodiment of the Avant of nil good principle in 
the traitorous knaves we know as political demagogues. They embody it for 
a class whose vote they covet, as the said vote ])rovides fat sinecures, with 
fatter salaries, for the aforesaid demagogues. This legislation is a standing 
conflict Avith the Constitution of the United vStates, and has no relation to 
justice, and outrages common sense; is simply a ]iremium upon meanness, 
laziness, dirtiness, Avastefulness, lying, false pretense, fraud, extravagance, 
intemperance, gamblhig, debauchery, and extinguishes honor, honesty, sturdy 
independence, self-respect, self restraint; in short, everj'thing that makes 
the sum and substance of an honorable, upright man or woman, and incites, 
even urges such to become sniffling, snuffling, sneaking beggars and paupers ; 
and those with an inborn tendency that wa}^, to red-handed, nmrderous 
crime, holds out every inducement for them to keep the straight road to the 
palatial poor-houses and penitentiaries it })rovides for them. !N"o nation 
whose legislation embodies such principles, no people that accepts and puts 
them into practice, and lives in the practice of them, can long exist as a 
people and a nation. The outcome must, of necessity, be anarchy, common, 
utter, irretrievable ruin. Especiall}" must this ensue where tlie majority is 
determined to enslave the minority ; is bent upon depriving its members of 
every right, public and private, in their business and property, and obliges them 
to hold l>oth, solely for the interest and profit of the ruling majority which as- 
sumes all oversight and control, dictates tlie methods pursued, the hours, the 
amount of proceeds, the division of proceeds throughout all its ramifications, 
own and control in everything, except in the first i)lace buying it and furnish- 
ing the capital to support it. For that, and that only, would they tolerate 
the minoritv. While their demagogue tools grind out the legislation that 



§8 The Next Columbian Faib* 

vests entire control and ownership of all goods and tenement property in their 
legal enactments, that, of course, represent the State itself. What else does 
it mean for these laws to make a present of 45 days' free occupanc}'' of a 
dwelling to the contemptible rogue who has, by lying promises to pay his 
rent, alread}'^ occupied it 4, 5 or 6 months free of all costs? What does this 
mean, if it don't mean that the State owns the property, not the man who, 
with his family, toiled and economized for years to earn the money to pay 
for it ? What does it mean, if it don't mean that the owner is the slave of 
the rogue who is occupying his house in whole or in part, and robbing hini by 
doing so ? If the State does not own the goods the merchant holds in pos- 
session, what does it mean that any lying cheat that, by plausible represen- 
tation of ability to jiay, obtains possession of more or less of them is, by the 
State, protected full}^ in refusing to pay for them, and in never paying for 
them ? What right has the State to do this with those goods it" they are 
tl'e citizen's own private property', and not the State's? Since the evil day 
when a wily political demagogue, with a keen eye to the vote of the work- 
ingmen, introduced and secured the passage of an act exempting three hun- 
dred dollars' worth of goods from seizure for debt ; since that legislature 
placed that high premium upon dishonesty, honor and honesty have, in this 
good Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, gone to the dogs. All merchants, 
and especially retail dealers, can testify that through this legal act the mer- 
chant trade loses annuall}^ millions of dollars. If any one doubt this, let him 
interview all tradesmen, especially retail tradesmen and tenement property 
owners, landlords, grocers, butchers, bakers, dairymen, shoemakers, tailors, 
everjdjody, druggists, doctors, undertakers ; rogues don't pay for even their 
shrouds and coffins when they can make other people do it. Interview them 
all, and you will learn appalling facts. As a means of degrading and demor- 
alizing the people, this law is unexcelled even by beer and whiskey, and 
under its ruling beer and whiskey have grown rampant. For now, those 
addicted to their intemperate use can and do spend nearly all they earn upon 
them, and support their families by robbing their landlords and retail 
dealers, anybody and everybody who is so unfortunate as to credit them. 
For these last there is no redress whatever ; in fact, our demagogue leg- 
islation evidently relegates them to the ranks of the malefactors who, having 
no rights, cannot be wronged; holds them as custodians only of whatever 
may be in their possession, and he, who can by any manner of lying 
or false pretense obtain possession of it, is rightfully the legal owner. 
Such is the nature and such is the effect of this villainous law that has been 
trumpeted through the land as a benefaction to the ^vorking people. Since 
the first hour of its active existence it has proven unmitigated diabolism; has 
done more to corru])t, degrade and debauch them than all other causes put 
together. JSTone but persons who, like myself, were engaged in retail busi- 
ness, both beforehand since its passage, can have any just conception of the 
deplorable change it has wrought. Under its fostering influence gambling 
and profligacy is becoming universal among young men. They move from 



The Next Columbian Fair. 39 

boarding house to boarding house, and obtain their food and lodging for 
ahnost nothing, and in a. similar manner they rob one dealer and another of 
the clothing they wear, while squandering their earnings at the bar and the 
gaming table and even worse resorts. Land monoi)olies, railroad monop- 
olies, every great combination of ca])ital, is certainly dangerous to the best 
interest of all classes, but they never, never, can rob the peo])le, like the leg- 
islation that robs them, of honor and honesty, by releasing them from 
the sacred obligations of both, and offering thern a n ward of three hundred 
dollars for renouncing both and practicing open, undisguised robbery. What 
the Avorking man and the })eople at large need worst at present is the im- 
mediate repeal of every legal enactment that is a })remiuni upon dishonesty. 
Oblige him and everybody to pay for everything they purchase. This, as a 
rule, will leave far less money for drinking, gambling and debauchery to 
those who spend their money on these degrading vices. Oblige them to live 
upon their own earnings, and'this, of necessity, will turn their attention to 
the practice of economy. If our working people Avere the prudent, thrifty, 
virtuous people they ought to be, dwelling in homes that are their own 
property and free of debt, our working people could dictate their own terms 
to capital. But a man who has no home and who, Avhen emergencies arise, 
never has a dollar saved to meet them with, is poorly equipped for a tourna- 
ment Avith capital. And when a thousand of such men are ])recipitated into 
the ring their numbers are not strength but multiplied Aveakness that means 
defeat and calamitous loss, will leave them Aveaker and poorer, and capital 
stronger and richer Avhen the tilt is over. Prudence and economy are the 
best and only safeguards of the A^orking people agahist the encroachments 
of capital, and honesty is foi' all classes the true source of prosperity. I do 
not mean honesty restricted by laAv to the Avorking class, Avliile merchants 
and manufacturers go into bankruptcy aiul, protected by our diabolical legis- 
lation, repudiate every debt and sacred ol)ligation that honor binds a man to 
pay if it take his last cent and cent's Avorth, and then Avith their families 
continue to live in unabated extravagance and luxury with the proceeds of 
the robbery. While nearly every S(j[uare of every city in the land contains 
a specimen of sucli unabashed Anllainy, Avhat better can Ave expect than Avhat 
Ave have of our Avorking people ? In all ages and among all people the 
higher class has been the model copied by the lower class. Equality before 
the laAV is one of the fundamental principles of our law, and demands that 
laAV — like justice — be even-lranded. When misfortunes overwhelm a working- 
man he must, empty handed, Avhen the storm is over, begin life anew. Let 
the merchant and manufacturer do tlie same. Could we trace tlirough the 
intricate windings of trade and manufacture, business depressions and panics 
to their inceptive causes, Ave Avould reach the momentous fact that extrava- 
gance, Avaste and intemperance are the chief causes of dishonest}'^, and dis- 
honesty's unpaid bills the chief causes of depressions and panics. And, 
moreover, if merchants and manufacturers Avere paid the vast sums they lose 
through the pernicious credit system they Avould doubtless be both more able 



40 • The Next Coliimbian Fair. 

and more willing to pay high wages. But high wages alone will never im- 
prove the condition of the working peo})le, nor ever in the world enable 
them to cope successfully with capital. Only when they have higher aspira- 
tions than gluttonous eating and intemperate drinking, when they value 
honor and honesty as they do their lives, scorn dishonesty and beggar}^, take 
pride in prudence and econoni}^ and the o^vnership of their own homes and in 
their own intelligence and retinement, will the working people be the ruling- 
power, the country permanently prosperous, and the next Great Columbian 
Fair a possibility. 




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